PAIR OF DUTCH SILVER SUGAR CASTERS

  • Strooibussen tieleman Sluyter, Amsterdam, 1712
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PAIR OF DUTCH SILVER SUGAR CASTERS

Attributed to Tieleman Sluyter van Deventer (Maker’s mark TS), Amsterdam, 1712

647 grams in total; 18 cm high

It is likely that this fine and early pair of Dutch silver baluster-shaped sugar casters on circular bases, engraved with the coats-of-arms of Borgerink-Hagedoorn, made by the Amsterdam silversmith Tieleman Sluyter in 1712, was intended as a wedding present for Antony Borgerink and Anna Cunera Hagdoorn, who were married on 14 June 1712 in Twello.

 

Tieleman Sluyter from Deventer was officially registered in the Amsterdam ‘poorterboek’ on 8 May 1711, which means he became burgher (citizen) of Amsterdam. His profession ‘silversmith’ was registered together with his name. At the age of 32, Tieleman Sluyter, son of Bartholdt Sluyter and Maria Bloemendaals, married Cornelia van Eemst, daughter of Roeloff van Eemst (1654-1714), an Amsterdam jeweller at Reguliersgracht. Tieleman lived at Cloveniersburgwal and died in September 1731 at Oude Zijds Voorburgwal.

 

Presumably, Tieleman Sluyter was trained as a silversmith at his uncle’s, Tielman Sluyter’s workshop in The Hague, who was his namesake. After his apprenticeship, at the age of 26, Tieleman might have left The Hague for Amsterdam. In 1711, he also will have been admitted to the Amsterdam silversmiths’ guild.

 

Tieleman Sluyter (from Deventer) and Deventer-based Anthony Borgerink, confessed the same reformed faith. Silversmith and commissioner will have known each other very well. The Sluyter family, both in Zutphen and in Deventer, brewers and wine merchants, moved within the same social circles as the Borgerink family. This way these Amsterdam silver sugar casters in Hague style came into the possession of judge Borgerink and his family. The fabulous armorial-engraved pair of Amsterdam silver casters will probably have been one of the first commissions for Tieleman Sluyter in his new residence.

 

While determining the hallmarks and attributing the maker’s mark, struck on this pair of silver casters, it was discovered that the Hague silversmith Tielman Sluyter had a nephew, Tieleman Sluyter, who was active as a silversmith in Amsterdam in the first half of the eighteenth century. With these recently obtained data from Amsterdam archives literature on Dutch antique silver could be suppleted.

 

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