Commissioned after the tragic death of Major Thomas Biddle, this finely wrought silver vase beautifully memorializes a lost loved one, while also testifying to the long history of violence in American politics. From the Colonial period through the Revolution and to the present day, fierce rhetoric and personal attacks have been deployed by politicians and their allies to advance agendas, excite supporters, and intimidate opponents, even when such words can lead to real harm. Thomas Biddle died when verbal taunts escalated to a vicious duel in a notorious episode of the Bank War, the series of political skirmishes during the 1830s that pitted his brother Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States, against President Andrew Jackson. In 1831, Thomas was director of the St. Louis Second Bank branch, when Missouri Congressman Spencer Pettis, a Jackson supporter, began publicly criticizing the institution and its leadership. Biddle attacked Pettis with a whip that July, leading to a duel on August 26 on Bloody Island in the Mississippi River. Firing their pistols from only five feet apart, both men were wounded and died within days. Biddle’s will called for his siblings and sisters-in-law to each receive “a silver vase or cup as a memorial of my affection.” Ten vases, including this one given to his brother John, were made the next year by prominent Philadelphia silversmiths Fletcher and Gardiner. The calyx form, acanthus leaves, dolphin handles, and other Classical motifs reflect a Greek Revival style fashionable at the time. One year later, in 1833, Nicholas Biddle would hire architect Thomas V. Walter to design a major Greek Revival addition to his summer estate, Andalusia, located northeast of Philadelphia. This vase is on public view at Andalusia alongside a portrait of Thomas Biddle and a mourning pin with a lock of Thomas’s hair that belonged to Nicholas.