A Chauffer's Porcelain Occupational Shaving Mug Belonging to Samuel Lustig

20th Century

bearing the name Sam Lustig in gilt lettering, and depicting a chauffeur changing the tire on an open-top touring automobile.

underside unmarked.

Height 3 3/4 inches.

Samuel Lustig was born in Austria in 1882 to Elias and Fannie Lustig. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1886 and settled in the Bronx, New York. By 1905, Lustig had married, fathered a young daughter, and was working as a tailor in Brooklyn, a profession he continued to explore until at least 1915. The U.S. Federal Census of 1920 records several life-changing events: Lustig was by that time a widower and worked as a chauffeur back in the Bronx, where he lived with his mother and two children.