Jefferson Cups

From Thomas Jefferson Wiki

In 1806 Thomas Jefferson was bequeathed two silver cups^[1] by his friend and teacher George Wythe. Several years later, Jefferson sent the Wythe cups and two others to John Letelier, a Richmond silversmith. Jefferson directed that they be melted down and made into eight smaller cups, weighing about five ounces each and in the form of a small cup sent as a model. They were to be gilded inside, and four cups were to be marked "G.W. to T.J." and four marked "T.J."

The completed cups were received at Monticello in 1810 and were used there until Jefferson's death in 1826. Four of the original eight Jefferson cups, which descended through Jefferson's grandchildren, are presently in the Monticello collection.

Timeline^[2]

1806. Death of George Wythe and bequest to Jefferson of "my silver cups." Later correspondence of Wythe's executor William Duval reveals that there were two of them.

1810. Jefferson had the Wythe cups, with two others ("a pair of Cans and a pair of Beakers"^[3]) melted down to make eight five-ounce silver cups, gilded inside. The model was a very small cup, believed to be French in origin. The maker was john Letelier (also LeTellier), a silversmith then working in Richmond. Jefferson had four of the cups marked "G.W. to T.J." and four marked "T.J." Record of payment has not yet been found.

1814. A visitor to Monticello, Francis Calley Gray, described dining at Monticello and noted that "the drinking cups were of silver, marked G.W. to T.J., the table liquors were beer and cider and after dinner wine."^[4]

1988. Four of the original eight cups are presently in the Monticello collection, two marked "G.W. to T.J." and two marked "T.J." Also in the collection is the small cup used as a model.

Footnotes

1. ↑ This article is based on Lucia C. Stanton, Monticello Research Department, 4 August 1989.
2. ↑ Timeline is based on Lucia C. Stanton, Monticello Research Report, 18 July 1988.
3. ↑ Jefferson to Letelier, 27 March 1810, PTJ:RS 2:315.
4. ↑ Francis Calley Gray, Thomas Jefferson in 1814: Being an Account of a Visit to Monticello, Virginia, ed. Henry S. Rowe and T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr. (Boston: Club of Odd Volumes, 1924), 69-70.

Further Sources

• Brown, Imogene E. American Aristides: A Biography of George Wythe. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981, 287-288.
• Kean, Gen. Jefferson Randolph. "Chancellor George Wythe and the Jefferson Cups." Annual Report of the Monticello Association 1939: 12-18.
• Stein, Worlds, 333-335.
• Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Monticello Explorer. Jefferson Cup. http://explorer.monticello.org/text/index.php?id=60&type=4
• Replicas of the Jefferson Cups are available for purchase at Monticello Gift Shop