Notes
This is one of a matching set of cut glass, covered sweetmeat urn lids. Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857–1944), a great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, owned these urns and used them at her Red Hill mansion.
A sweetmeat is a sweet delicacy such as candied fruit, gilded nuts, sugared comfits, and crystallized flowers. In the 18th and 19th centuries, sweetmeats were presented on the table in a fancy basket, dish, or bowl, in silver, glass, or ceramics, which were sometimes made in pairs to be set at each end of a table.
This urn was purchased by the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation at the sale of Lucy Gray Henry Harrison's effects from her executrix, Elizabeth Kerper (1890–1964), on June 30, 1945.