Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
June 17, 1806
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 16
Additional Source Text:
Aurora. General Advertiser (Philadelphia), 28 Nov 1806 adds: " "Such are said to have been used by the ancients and deposited with the dead."
Notes:
A lacrymatory or lachrymatory (from the Latin lacrima, 'tear') is a small vessel of terracotta or, more frequently, of glass, found in Roman and late Greek tombs, and supposed to have been bottles into which mourners dropped their tears.
James Leander Cathcart (1767-1843) was at the time of this donation U.S. Consul General to the City of Tunis (1802–1807). His memoir relates that he returned to the U.S. in 1805, passing through Philadelphia in March. The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers (La Porte, Ind., 1899), p. 308
