Punchbowl

Some of the earliest punchbowls in America have been discovered archeologically at Rosewell, the Page family home in Gloucester County, Virginia.  This Dutch example is one of many early bowls discovered near the York River, at a site that may have been an early wharf.  Whether it was broken in transport across the Atlantic, or in the midst of a celebratory dock-side bowl of punch, is not known.  In the period, punch would most often have been consumed by a group of men directly from the bowl.  A scene of maritime punch drinking can be see in the artist John Greenwood’s (1727-1792) painting Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam in the collection of the St. Louis Art Museum.