All About Coffee Part 118

There is ill.u.s.trated also a design in tiles that were let into the wall of an ancient coffee house in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, known as the "Dish of Coffee Boy" in the catalog of the collection of London antiquities in the Guildhall Museum. Mr. Ellis thinks this belongs to a period a little earlier, but certainly not later, than 1692; the coffee pot represented being exactly of the lantern shape. It is an oblong sign of glazed Delft tiles, decorated in blue, brown, and yellow, representing a youth pouring coffee. Upon a table, by his side, are a gazette, two pipes, a bowl, a bottle, and a mug; above, on a scroll, is, "dish of coffee boy."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DISH OF COFFEE BOY" DESIGN IN DELFT TILES 1692]

Modifications of the lantern began to appear with great rapidity in England. In the coffee pot of Chinese porcelain, ill.u.s.trated, probably made in China from an English model a few years later than the 1692 pot, Mr. Ellis observes that "the spout has already lost its straightness, the extreme taper of the body is diminished, and the lid betrays the first tendency to depart from the straightness of the cone to the curved outline of the dome." He adds:

These variations rapidly intensified, and at the commencement of the eighteenth century we find the body still less tapering and the lid has become a perfect dome. As we approach the end of Queen Anne's reign the thumb piece disappears and the handle is no longer set on at right angles to the spout. Through the reign of George I but little modification took place, save that the taper of the body became less and less. In the Second George's time we find the taper has almost entirely disappeared, so that the sides are nearly parallel, while the dome of the lid has been flattened down to a very low elevation above the rim. In the second quarter of the eighteenth century the pear shaped coffee pot was the vogue. In the earlier years of George III, when many new and beautiful designs in silversmiths' work were created, a complete revolution in coffee-pots takes place, and the flowing outlines of the new pattern recall the form of the Turkish ewer, which had been discarded nearly one hundred years previously.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHINESE PORCELAIN COFFEE POT

Late seventeenth century]

The evolution is shown by ill.u.s.trations of Lord Swaythling's pot of 1731; the coffee jug of 1736; the Vincent pot of 1738; the Viscountess Wolseley's coffee pot of copper plated with silver; the Irish coffee pot of 1760; and the silver coffee pots of 1773-76 and of 1779-80 (see ill.u.s.trations on pages 604, 605 and 607).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vincent Pot, Hall-marked, London, 1738

Lord Swaythling's Pot, 1731

SILVER COFFEE POTS, EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

From Jackson's "Ill.u.s.trated History of English Plate"]

There are ill.u.s.trated in this connection specimens of coffee pots in stoneware by Elers (1700), and in salt glaze by Astbury, and another of the period about 1725. These are in the department of British and medieval antiquities of the British Museum, where are to be seen also some beautiful specimens of coffee-service pots in Whieldon ware, and in Wedgwood's jasper ware.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IRISH COFFEE POT, 1760

Hall-marked Dublin; the property of Col. Moore-Brabazon]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY'S COFFEE POT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SCOFIELD POT OF 1779-80]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE JUG, 1736]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER COFFEE POTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALT-GLAZE POT

By John Astbury]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELERS WARE COFFEE POT

Stoneware, about 1700]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALT-GLAZE POT

About 1725]

[Ill.u.s.tration: POTS IN POTTERY AND PORCELAIN 18TH TO 20TH CENTURIES

1--Staffords.h.i.+re; 2--English, eighteen to twentieth centuries; 3--English, blue printed ware, eighteenth to nineteenth centuries; 4--Leeds, 1760-1790; 5--Staffords.h.i.+re, nineteenth to twentieth centuries]

Ill.u.s.trated, too, are some beautiful examples of the art of the potter, applied to coffee service, as found in the Metropolitan Museum, where they have been brought from many countries. Included are Leeds and Staffords.h.i.+re examples of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; a Sino-Lowestoft pot of the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries; an Italian (_capodimonte_) pot of the eighteenth century; German pots of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; a Vienna coffee pot of the eighteenth century; a French (_La Seine_) coffee pot of 1774-1793, a Sevres pot of 1792-1804; and a Spanish eighteenth-century coffee pot decorated in copper l.u.s.ter.

At the Metropolitan may be seen also Hatfield and Sheffield-plate pots of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and many examples of silver tea and coffee service and coffee pots by American silversmiths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER COFFEE POTS, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Left, 1776-77. Right, 1773-4.]

Silver tea pots and coffee pots were few in America before the middle of the eighteenth century. Early coffee-pot examples were tapering and cylindrical in form, and later matched the tea pots with swelling drums, molded bases, decorated spouts, and molded lids with finials.

From notes by R.T. Haines Halsey and John H. Buck, collected by Florence N. Levy and woven into an introduction to the Metropolitan Museum's art exhibition catalog for the Hudson-Fulton celebration of 1909, we learn that:

The first silver made in New England was probably fas.h.i.+oned by English or Scotch emigrants who had served their time abroad. They were followed by craftsmen who were either born here, or, like John Hull, arriving at an early age, learned their trade on this side.

In England it was required that every master goldsmith should have his mark and set it upon his work after it was a.s.sayed and marked with the king's mark (hall-mark) testifying to the fineness of the metal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sino-Lowestoft, Eighteenth To Nineteenth Centuries]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ITALIAN CAPODIMONTE, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LA SEINE, 1774

SeVRES, 1792

GERMAN POTS, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORCELAIN POTS IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK]

The Colonial silversmiths marked their wares with their initials, with or without emblems, placed in s.h.i.+elds, circles, etc., without any guide as to place of manufacture or date. After about 1725 it was the custom to use the surname, with or without an initial, and sometimes the full name. Since the establishment of the United States the name of the town was often added and also the letters D or C in a circle, probably meaning dollar or coin, showing the standard or coin from which the wares were made.

In the New York colony there were evolved silver tea pots of a unique design, that was not used elsewhere in the colonies. Mr. Halsey says they were used indiscriminately for both tea and coffee. In style they followed, to a certain extent, the squat pear-shaped tea pots of the period of 1717-18 in England, but had greater height and capacity.

The colonial silversmiths wrought many beautiful designs in coffee, tea, and chocolate pots. Fine specimens are to be seen in the Halsey and Clearwater loan collections in the Metropolitan Museum. Included in the Clearwater collection is a coffee pot by Pygan Adams (1712-1776); and recently, there was added a coffee pot by Ephraim Brasher, whose name appears in the _New York City Directory_ from 1786 to 1805. He was a member of the Gold and Silversmiths' Society, and he made the die for the famous gold doubloon, known by his name, a specimen of which recently sold in Philadelphia for $4,000. His brother, Abraham Brasher, who was an officer in the continental army, wrote many popular ballads of the Revolutionary period, and was a constant contributor to the newspapers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIENNA COFFEE POT, 1830

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPANISH COFFEE POT, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In the Metropolitan Museum]

Judge Clearwater's collection of colonial silver in the Metropolitan Museum, to which he is constantly adding, is a magnificent one; and the coffee pot is worthy of it. It is thirteen and one-half inches high, weighs forty-four ounces, exclusive of the ebony handle, has a curved body and splayed base, with a G.o.drooned band to the base and a similar edge to the cover. The spout is elaborate and curved; the cover has an urn-shaped finial; and there is a decoration of an engraved medallion surrounded by a wreath with a ribbon forming a true lover's knot.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

By Samuel Minott By Charles Hatfield By Pygan Adams Halsey Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art Clearwater Collection