NEW ENGLAND PORRINGER—GARVAN 551 
Makers’ marks provide additional confirmation of the basic trend 
in piercing design. Since they are the consequence of the careful 
and exact manufacture of punches, they combined the artisan’s con- 
cept of a significant outline with what he was certain would not 
offend his patrons. Significantly, the heart appears in the marks of 
five of the most celebrated early silversmiths—Robert Sanderson, 
John Hull, Jeremiah Dummer, John Coney, and Peter Oliver. It was 
rivaled in frequency only by the shield of John Edwards, Benjamin 
Hiller, George Hanners, Joseph Glidden, John Burt, and John Coney. 
The tablet appears in the mark of Sanderson and Hull: only, the 
sunburst most notably in Sanderson’s work. Rarest of all, a book on 
stand(?) suggesting the outline of a pulpit framed the EW of 
Edward Winslow. How to weigh the clear division between the 
earlier heart mark and the later escutcheon must remain indetermi- 
nate. Both are common in English marks, among many other forms 
almost totally unknown in New England. Both represent aspects 
of religious values strongly emphasized by Puritanism: on the one 
hand, divine love or revelation, on the other, personal achievement. 
The gradual emergence of the latter closely paralleled the rise of 
Royal government and the decline of the theocratic party after 1690. 
The development of the iconography of the Puritan handle like- 
wise seems to follow closely the decline of Puritan prestige. 
Significantly the first element to disappear is the silhouette of the 
tablets which in one Coney piece seems to have been actually re- 
shaped into an ample tulip (pl. 6, fig. 1), and in another piece by 
David Jesse (Smithsonian) to have been altered by filing. Coinci- 
dentally, or soon thereafter, the trefoils, quatrefoils, and circles 
vanish before the onslaught of sheafs of wheat and other new forms. 
Hearts, crescents, and tulips (lilies) maintain for a time their im- 
portance, but become distorted and agitated into more violent angles 
and shapes (pl. 6, fig. 2; pl. 7, fig. 1). 
Significantly, these shapes no longer determine the pattern of the 
handle but must adapt themselves to the sinuous vinelike outline of 
the handle’s outside edge. While remaining symmetrical, the handle 
manages to suggest the movement and distortion of the Rococo. 
Mantlings added to initials mark the increased role of personal 
achievement (pl. 7, fig. 2). Meanwhile, new openings unfamiliar in 
their pattern to Puritan iconography have begun to appear. Some- 
times the vine encloses horns of plenty, at another time cockle shells. 
Gradually the vine becomes more explicit and realistic until, as in 
Chinese Chippendale furniture, it quite dominates the design. (PI. 
8, figs. 1 and 2.) A significant aberration of this handle type was 
made by Joseph Richardson, Sr., in 1775, when for Thomas Paine he 
