Cup and Saucer from a Twelve Piece Tea Service

Although the vast majority of the settlers in New Netherland were Dutch, there were a small number of other European nationalities represented as well. This tea set, proudly bearing the family name in gold, belonged to the Brooklyn-born descendants of Pietro Cesare Alberti (1605–1655), one of the first Italian immigrants to the New World ("Alberti" was anglicized to "Burtis" in the eighteenth century). With a land grant from the Dutch West India Company, Alberti owned a tobacco plantation along Wallabout Bay (now the Brooklyn Navy Yard). Subsequent generations remained in Brooklyn, including Abraham Burtis, who lived on High Street at the time that the family acquired this tea set.