# Tea Caddy > Paul de Lamerie - 1741-42, most likely the London assay year running from late May 1741 to late May 1742 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/paul-de-lamerie/lamerie-tea-caddy-cleveland/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-15 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Paul de Lamerie - **Date:** 1741-42, most likely the London assay year running from late May 1741 to late May 1742 - **Medium:** Silver gilt - **Dimensions:** 13.4 x 9.6 x 5.8 cm (5 1/4 x 3 3/4 x 2 5/16 in.). Weight not published in the sources consulted. - **Object type:** Silver - **Period:** English rococo, eighteenth century - **Current location:** Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, gallery 203A, British Painting and Decorative Arts - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A small silver-gilt tea caddy, hallmarked in London for the assay year 1741-42 with the credit of Paul de Lamerie, held at the Cleveland Museum of Art as the Thomas S. Grasselli Memorial Collection. The museum accessions it in three parts: a cover record for the whole object, 1943.179, and separate numbers for the canister body, 1943.179.a, and the lid, 1943.179.b. It is a single caddy, not a pair and not a set with a matching sugar box, and it is a distinct object from the Hardwicke Soup Tureen and Cover already in this archive, a different form, a different institution and a different accession made under the same maker's mark six years apart.Nothing is engraved on it. No arms, crest, motto or initials survive on either the canister or the lid, which is unusual for surviving Lamerie table silver of this class and means the object carries none of the heraldic evidence that dates or authenticates most of his documented output. Its own dating rests entirely on a hallmark the museum has not published punch by punch, set against a Victoria and Albert Museum tea caddy from the same workshop that carries no mark at all and is dated only by style and by the arms it does bear. Between the two objects sits the whole evidentiary problem this maker's silver poses in miniature.Before 1943 nothing is known. The Cleveland Museum of Art's own provenance record gives only a name and a terminal date for the piece's ownership before it entered the collection: Mrs. Thomas S. Grasselli, to 1943. No patron, dealer or sale from the 1740s to the mid-twentieth century is documented anywhere consulted for this record, a gap of roughly two hundred years that this record states rather than bridges. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1741-42** Unknown first owner `[unknown]` (origin) Hallmarked in the London assay year 1741-42 and credited by the Cleveland Museum of Art to Paul de Lamerie. No engraved arms, crest, motto or initials survive on either the canister or the lid, so unlike most other Lamerie objects in this archive, this record has no heraldic evidence pointing to a first owner, and none is named in any source consulted. - **-1943** Mrs. Thomas S. (Emilie Schmidt) Grasselli, Shaker Heights, Ohio `[unknown]` (gap) The museum's own provenance record dates her ownership only '?-1943', meaning no start date, prior owner, dealer or sale is documented for the roughly two centuries between the caddy's manufacture and her possession of it. The gap is recorded rather than bridged. - **1943-present** Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio `[documented]` (acquisition) Credited as The Thomas S. Grasselli Memorial Collection, formed the year after the death of the Cleveland chemical-industry executive Thomas Saxton Grasselli (1874-1942). Whether the object was a gift or a purchase, and for what sum, is not stated in the museum's public record. - **1950** Cleveland Museum of Art, lent to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art `[documented]` (exhibition) Shown in 'Three Centuries of English Silver,' Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 29 September to 12 November 1950. - **1994-1995** Cleveland Museum of Art `[documented]` (exhibition) Shown in 'All That Glitters: Great Silver Vessels in Cleveland's Collection,' Cleveland Museum of Art, 23 November 1994 to 8 January 1995. - **2020-present** Cleveland Museum of Art `[documented]` (display) Reinstalled in the museum's British galleries in June 2020; on view in gallery 203A, British Painting and Decorative Arts, as of this record. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - No auction appearance is documented for this caddy in any source consulted for this record. It is known only through the Thomas S. Grasselli Memorial Collection credit of 1943, for which no price is published. ## Exhibitions - Three Centuries of English Silver, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1950 - 35th Anniversary Exhibition, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951 - The Age of Excellence: Rococo and Its Effect, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1959 - All That Glitters: Great Silver Vessels in Cleveland's Collection, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1994-95 - British Gallery Reinstallation, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2020 ## Literature - The Cleveland Museum of Art, Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art / 1966, plate caption p. 152. - The Cleveland Museum of Art, Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art / 1969, p. 152, and Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art / 1978, p. 192. ## Open questions - Who first owned this caddy? No arms, crest, motto or initials survive on either the canister or the lid, and the museum's own record names no owner before Mrs. Thomas S. Grasselli in the twentieth century. - Was it made as a single caddy, or is it a survivor of an original pair with a matching companion and a sugar box, the standard mid-century outfit this workshop is documented making more than once? Nothing in the sources consulted answers this. - When did Mrs. Grasselli acquire it, and from whom? The museum's own provenance gives only '?-1943' for her ownership, with no start date, dealer or prior owner named. - Was the 1943 acquisition a gift in Thomas S. Grasselli's memory or a purchase made to form the memorial collection named for him? Not specified in the sources consulted, and no price is published either way. - What do the caddy's hallmarks actually read, punch by punch? The museum's public record gives only the two-year assay span; no reading of the individual marks has been located. - What does the caddy weigh? Not published in any source consulted, though weight is a direct check on a piece of this class and period, as established for other Lamerie silver already in this archive. - Is the gilding original eighteenth-century fire-gilding, or a later re-gilding? The museum's record states the medium as silver gilt without addressing the surface's history. - Has the object ever been examined against the Goldsmiths' Company's own criteria for tea and coffee wares as a category prone to transposed marks? No such examination is recorded in the sources consulted. ## Sources - [1] Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access API and collection record for accession 1943.179, Tea Caddy, Paul Jacques de Lamerie, 1741-42, silver gilt, The Thomas S. Grasselli Memorial Collection. Source for the tombstone, dimensions, provenance ('?-1943' for Mrs. Thomas S. Grasselli), exhibition history, description text, the 'did you know' note on sloping shoulders, literature citations, current gallery location, and the lead and other Cleveland-held images. Fetched directly, both the API record (id 122920) and the public object page. - [2] Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access API and collection record for accession 1943.179.a, the canister body. Fetched directly. - [3] Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access API and collection record for accession 1943.179.b, the lid. Fetched directly. - [4] Cleveland Museum of Art, Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art / 1966, full text via the Internet Archive, checked directly for the plate caption on p. 152. - [5] Cleveland Museum of Art, Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art / 1969, p. 152, and Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art / 1978, p. 192. Cited by the museum's own record as reproducing the same plate. NOT independently checked for this record. - [6] Wikidata, items Q60778610 (accession 1943.179), Q60755739 (1943.179.a) and Q60761447 (1943.179.b). Corroborates the museum, inventory numbers and public-domain determination. - [7] Wikimedia Commons, files and extmetadata for the Cleveland Museum of Art's own open-access uploads of this object ('Paul Jacques de Lamerie - Tea Caddy - 1943.179 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif' and its .a/.b siblings, plus 'Clevelandart 1943.179.jpg'). Checked directly: every one returns LicenseShortName 'CC0' together with a Copyrighted flag of 'True', the same contradiction already documented on this maker's Portland tureen record. Because of that contradiction, this record's lead and Cleveland-held images cite the museum's own Open Access API record directly rather than these Commons uploads, per the pre-verified image instruction for this record. - [8] Wikimedia Commons, file and extmetadata for 'File:Tea caddies with motto Nunquam Non Paratus, Paul de Lamerie, London, 1731-1732, silver - Fowler Museum - University of California, Los Angeles - DSC02579.jpg', photographed by Daderot. Checked directly: LicenseShortName 'Public domain', Copyrighted 'False'. - [9] Wikimedia Commons, file and extmetadata for 'File:Soup tureen with engraved arms and crest of the Hill family, Paul de Lamerie, London, 1741-1742, silver - California Palace of the Legion of Honor - San Francisco, CA - DSC09886.jpg', photographed by Daderot. Checked directly: LicenseShortName 'Public domain', Copyrighted 'False'. - [10] Victoria and Albert Museum, collection record for Tea Caddy, museum number M.314-1962, attributed to Paul de Lamerie, engraving attributed to William Hogarth after a design by Ellis Gamble, bequeathed by Claude D. Rotch. Source for the unmarked, style-and-heraldry-dated comparandum discussed in this record. Fetched directly. - [11] British Art Network, 'Fantasy meets whimsy'. Source for the pair of tea caddies and sugar box made for Sir James Dashwood, 2nd Bt, and Elizabeth Spencer, about 1738, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fetched directly. The Metropolitan Museum's own object page (accession search result 761576) was located but returned a server error on direct fetch and was NOT independently consulted for this record. - [12] Association of Small Collectors of Antique Silver (ASCAS), 'The History of Early English Silver Tea Equipage'. Source for the standard practice of paired caddies plus a sugar container in a lockable case, and the 119 percent tea duty by 1784. Fetched directly. - [13] Mozeris Fine Antiques, 'Silver Gilt & Vermeil - Complete Guide'. Source for the fire-gilding (mercury amalgam) process and its documented use in Paul de Lamerie's and Paul Storr's workshops. Fetched directly. - [14] Mozeris Fine Antiques, 'Paul de Lamerie - Complete Silversmith Guide'. Checked directly; this dealer's own enumeration of Lamerie's major forms (wine cisterns, salvers, coffee pots, chocolate pots, tea kettles, tureens, candelabra, flatware) does not include tea caddies, noted here as an honest gap in that particular source rather than evidence about the object. - [15] Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University, 'Grasselli Chemical Co.' Source for the Grasselli family chemical business, its 1866-67 move to Cleveland, its growth under Caesar Augustin Grasselli and his son Thomas S. Grasselli, and the 1928 consolidation with Du Pont. Fetched directly. - [16] Find a Grave, memorial for Thomas Saxton Grasselli (1874-1942). TERTIARY and genealogical. This record could not load the page directly (server returned 403 Forbidden); the birth and death years used here come from the page's own indexed search snippet, not from a page this record read in full, and are used only to corroborate the timing of the museum's 1943 memorial credit. - [17] Iconotheca, maker page for Paul de Lamerie. Read in full before this record was written. Source for the sponsor's-mark point, the range of the workshop's output from forks to centrepieces, the Assay Office's naming of tea and coffee wares as a duty-dodger risk category, and the account of his 1751 death and will. - [18] Iconotheca, record for the Hardwicke Soup Tureen and Cover (slug lamerie-hardwicke-tureen). Read before this record was written to confirm this caddy is a distinct object at a different institution, and to avoid repeating its forgery-scholarship sourcing (the 2024 Goldsmiths' Company seminar and the Gilbert Collection counterfeit case) rather than finding this object's own angle. - [19] Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access API records for the museum's other three documented Lamerie holdings: accession 1936.353 (Fruit Basket, 1729), 1986.206 (Cann, 1727) and 1941.601 (Tray, 1745-46). Fetched directly, used for related_works and comparanda images. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.