Soup Tureen

Soup Tureen
China, ca. 1770
Porcelain
Gift of Mrs. Howard Van Sinderen 

This soup tureen belonged to Samuel Allyne Otis (1740-1814) and Elizabeth Gray (1746-1779), whose harmonious household was disrupted by the American Revolution. Elizabeth felt torn between her husband and her Loyalist father Harrison Gray, who departed for London in exile along with her brothers. Elizabeth’s letters to her father are filled with sadness at their parting: “It is not in the power of words to express how much I have suffered for you and the rest of my dear friends since you left Boston.” Elizabeth never reunited with her family, dying of illness in 1779. Samuel Otis had the unhappy task of informing his father-in-law, who responded to the news with shared grief and poignant sympathy: “The tenderness and affection you had for my dear child, make you stand high in my Estimation, notwithstanding we widely differ in our political principles.”