American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts

Note:

As the engraved inscription suggests, this ladle has traditionally been associated with George Washington, and was likely presented by him as a wedding gift to William Muir and Mary Ritchie, who married on December 24, 1786. William Muir was born in Anwoth, Scotland, and immigrated to America in 1774, thereafter entering Washington's Army and fighting during the Revolutionary War. Mary Ritchie was born in 1764, to parents George Ritchie and Katherine Vigneau Tillou of New York.