# The Sons of Liberty Bowl > Paul Revere II - 1768, finished within five weeks of 30 June > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/paul-revere/paul-revere-sons-of-liberty-bowl/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-18 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Paul Revere II - **Date:** 1768, finished within five weeks of 30 June - **Medium:** Silver, hammered and engraved - **Dimensions:** Height 5 1/2 in. (about 14 cm); diameter at the lip 11 in. (about 27.9 cm); diameter at the base 5 13/16 in. (about 14.8 cm) - **Object type:** Silver - **Period:** American colonial, eighteenth century - **Current location:** Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession 49.45 - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A silver punch bowl made in Boston in the summer of 1768 for fifteen members of the Sons of Liberty, to honour the ninety-two members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives who refused a royal order to rescind the Circular Letter. It was made from forty-five ounces of silver and holds forty-five gills, and both numbers are political: forty-five is John Wilkes's North Briton No. 45, and ninety-two is the vote of 30 June 1768.Revere finished it within five weeks of that vote and it appears nowhere in his shop records, although the wastebook covering 1768 survives and runs continuously through the year. The dedication engraved on it is probably not his words but Dr Joseph Warren's, an identification made through a Boston merchant's habit of writing the real authors on his newspapers.It descended in the family of one of the fifteen, left that family in 1902, and was bought for the Museum of Fine Arts in 1949 by public subscription, schoolchildren included, after the museum found it could not meet an asking price of 56,000 dollars. ## 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. - **1768** Fifteen members of the Sons of Liberty, jointly `[documented]` (commission) Commissioned from Paul Revere by fifteen men whose names are engraved round the rim as a round robin. Kept at Nathaniel Barber's insurance office in the North End and used at the Bunch of Grapes and Green Dragon taverns. - **-1832** William Mackay, Boston, and his heirs `[documented]` (purchase of the joint shares) Stevens states that William Mackay, one of the fifteen, bought the right of ownership from the other Sons of Liberty, and that the bowl passed thereafter to his descendants. The date on which he bought the others out is not given in the sources read, so the start of this link is left open rather than guessed. - **1832-1902** William Mackay of New York City, then Robert C. Mackay of Boston `[documented]` (inheritance) Fairbanks records that in 1832 the bowl became the property of William Mackay of New York City and passed subsequently to his brother, Robert C. Mackay of Boston. Within this period Stevens records two fixed points: in 1874 the Rev Dr George E. Ellis took the bowl to the Massachusetts Historical Society, where the occasion was minuted, after which it was returned to the family; and in January 1895 the owner was a direct descendant of William Mackay working as a clerk at the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company in Milk Street, Boston. - **1902-1949** Marian Lincoln Perry, Providence, Rhode Island, and her family `[documented]` (transfer between descendant families) Robert C. Mackay passed the bowl in 1902 to Marian Lincoln Perry of Providence, who was herself a descendant of one of the fifteen original associates. The bowl therefore moved from the descendants of one subscriber to the descendants of another rather than leaving the founding families. Re-verified 2026-08-18: the museum's own published account identifies her specifically as the great-great-granddaughter of John Marston, one of the fifteen. Perry died in 1935; her son Marsden J. Perry inherited the bowl (the museum's own collections record dates the inheritance to 1938) and, working with the Boston dealer Israel Sack, offered it to the Museum of Fine Arts on the grounds that 'the bowl should belong to the city that gave it birth.' This record previously named the 1949 donor as 'Mrs J. Marsden Perry'; that has been corrected here to follow the museum's own current collections record, which names a male heir, not a widow. - **1949-present** Museum of Fine Arts, Boston `[documented]` (acquisition by public subscription) Accession 49.45, credit line gift by subscription and the Francis Bartlett Fund. Prominent Bostonians organised the Revere Sons of Liberty Bowl Fund; the superintendent's office circulated an invitation to Boston schoolchildren on 30 November 1948 with a collection day of 7 December 1948, and their contributions were part of the sum raised. A committee under Mark Bortman raised the balance after the museum found it could not meet the asking price of 56,000 dollars. On 15 February 1949 Governor Paul A. Dever transmitted the bowl from Bortman to Edward Jackson Holmes, the museum's president. First displayed in the upper rotunda with portraits of colonial notables. Re-verified 2026-08-18: as of June 2026 the bowl is no longer in that rotunda placement - it now stands in the Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch Gallery (Gallery 132), moved there as the centrepiece of the museum's reinstalled Art of the Americas galleries, its first such reinstallation since 2010. Since 20 June 2026 it has been shown beside an 1857 stoneware storage jar by David Drake, an enslaved South Carolina potter who also inscribed his work; the museum plays audio of both objects' inscriptions for visitors, deliberately setting Revere's Revolutionary-era protest against Drake's testimony as an enslaved maker. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This bowl has NEVER been sold at auction. It passed by inheritance and private transfer until 1949 and has been publicly owned since. Everything offered in the salerooms under the title Sons of Liberty Bowl is a reproduction. The only money figure attached to the object is the 1949 ASKING PRICE of 56,000 US dollars, which is not a hammer, not a premium, not an estimate and not a recorded price paid; the price actually paid has not been found. ## Exhibitions - Shown to the Massachusetts Historical Society by the Rev Dr George E. Ellis; the occasion minuted in the society's archives, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1874 - Displayed on acquisition in the upper rotunda with portraits of colonial notables, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1949 - Paul Revere's Boston, 1735-1818, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1975 ## Literature - Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 'The silver punch bowl made by Paul Revere...', Boston, Nathan Sawyer and Son, 1895, reprinted from the Boston Sunday Herald of 20 January 1895. - Clarence S. Brigham, 'Paul Revere's Engravings', revised edition, New York, Atheneum, 1969. - Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Wendy Cooper, 'Paul Revere's Boston, 1735-1818', Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1975. - Jonathan L. Fairbanks, 'Paul Revere's Sons of Liberty Bowl', Colonial Society of Massachusetts. - Gerald W. R. Ward, 'Paul Revere: Sons of Liberty Bowl', Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. - Kathryn C. Buhler, 'American Silver 1655-1825 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston', 1972. ## Open questions - What did the fifteen pay Revere? There is no entry in the wastebooks, and the volume covering 1768 is continuous through that year. No figure exists to find. - Is the absence from the wastebooks concealment or untidiness? Fairbanks argues concealment. The Massachusetts Historical Society describes Revere's early daily record-keeping as inconsistent. Both readings are on the table and this record does not arbitrate. - What did the Museum of Fine Arts actually pay in 1949? The asking price of 56,000 dollars is recorded; the sum paid, and the split between subscription income and the Francis Bartlett Fund, are not. - Which of Revere's punches is struck on the underside, and exactly where? Stevens says only that the name is stamped there. - Is the body raised from a single sheet or seamed? No source read for this record states it. - Who first ranked this bowl with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? The comparison is repeated everywhere and attributed to nobody in the sources read. - Was the bowl exhibited publicly between 1874 and 1949? Only the 1874 visit to the Massachusetts Historical Society is recorded in the sources read. ## Sources - [1] Jonathan L. Fairbanks, 'Paul Revere's Sons of Liberty Bowl', Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Read in full. Source for the dimensions and present weight, the forty-five ounces and forty-five gills, the five-week production, the absence from the daybooks, the transcription of both inscriptions, the identification of Joseph Warren as 'A True Patriot' through the Harbottle Dorr papers, the Wilkes material, the accession number and credit line, the 1995 discovery of Copley's date on the Revere portrait, and the 1949 subscription campaign. - [2] Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 'The silver punch bowl made by Paul Revere to commemorate a vote of the honorable House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay in 1768', Boston, Nathan Sawyer and Son, 1895, reprinted from the Boston Sunday Herald of 20 January 1895; cover title 'A chapter of provincial history'. Read in full from the Library of Congress copy. A PERIOD SOURCE, not modern scholarship: source for the names of the fifteen, the transcription of the inscriptions as read in 1895, the statement that William Mackay bought out the other fourteen, the 1874 visit to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the 1895 rediscovery, the maker's mark on the underside, and the Folsom photographic campaign. - [3] Massachusetts Historical Society, collection guide to the Revere Family Papers, 1746-1964, fa0017. Read directly. Source for Wastebook and memoranda, Boston, 3 January 1761 to 10 October 1783; for Wastebook, Boston, 2 August 1783 to 7 August 1797; for the absence of entries between 2 April 1775 and 18 December 1778 and the reason given for it; for the statement that Revere kept inconsistent daily records in wastebooks in his early years; for the content of a commission entry; and for Mark Bortman's 1967 gift of the Paul J. Revere papers. - [4] Paul Revere House, 'Revere's Silver Shop'. Read directly. Source for the statement that Revere's earliest maker's mark was the same as his father's and that father and son shared casting patterns, for the death of his father in 1754, for the shop records beginning in 1761, for over 1,000 personal items and 414 repairs, and for the extra charge made for engraving inscriptions, monograms and crests. - [5] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collection record for the Sons of Liberty Bowl, accession 49.45. NOT READ: the public record sits behind a JavaScript robot check and returned a verification page to every fetch attempted. The accession number and the credit line used here are printed in source 1. - [6] Clarence S. Brigham, 'Paul Revere's Engravings', revised edition, New York, Atheneum, 1969, cited by Fairbanks at pages 43-49 for A Warm Place - Hell and 79-85 for the landing print. NOT CONSULTED DIRECTLY. - [] - [] --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. 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