THE TEAPOT, THE COFFEE-POT, THE TEA-KETTLE, THE TEA-CADDY
The teapot, its early form--The seventeenth century--The
eighteenth-century coffee-pot--The tea-kettle and stand--Late
Georgian teapots and coffee-pots--The tea-caddy and its varieties.
The silver plate of a country undoubtedly reflects the manners and
customs of its users. The growth of luxury undoubtedly has had its
influence upon the manufacture of a great number of silver articles
employed in everyday use. But although the field be larger, the class
of articles, to say nothing of the average artistic quality, differs
in the same measure as the habits of the users. The antiquary of
the twenty-first century who turns to the late nineteenth century
will find marmalade-pots and pickle-forks in lieu of posset-pots and
punch-ladles. He will find that cheap chemists have disseminated
hair-brushes and cheap scent-bottles of inferior glass with silver rims.
The earliest known teapot is of the year 1670, although Pepys tells of
drinking tea in 1660. This fine specimen is a lantern-shaped teapot
with a history, and is illustrated page 243. It is inscribed, “This
Silver tea Pott was presented to ye Com^{ttee} of ye East India Company
by ye Right Hono^{le} George Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle. A member
of that Honourable and worthy Society and A true Hearty Louer of them.
1670.” It is engraved with the arms of the donor and of the East India
Company. The maker’s mark is T. L., and the date letter and hall-marks
of London are of the year 1670.
In the year 1690 the form of teapot was melon-shaped, still tall, and
still suggestive of a coffee-pot, made more manifest by the stopper
attached at the spout by a chain. But in the eighteenth century,
teapots underwent a change; they began to assume styles which have
endured to the present day. Since Queen Anne sat in the Orangery
in Kensington Gardens with her bosom friend “Mrs. Freeman” over a
dish of tea to hear of Marlborough’s victories, the habit has become
established in popular favour.
The rivalry between coffee and tea and the attempt of chocolate to
obtain supremacy are interesting side-lights in social history,
tinctured by political bias and prejudice. Coffee claims the field
first. The honour of introducing tea remains between the English and
the Dutch, while that of coffee rests between the English and the
French. The price of tea in 1660 was sixty shillings per pound, and
Thomas Garway, tobacconist and coffee-man, was the first who retailed
tea. His shop bill is the most curious and historical account of tea we
have:
“Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and
sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its
former scarceness and dearness it hath been only used as a
regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made
thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1657. The said Garway
did purchase a quantity thereof, the first publicly sold the said
tea in leaf or drink, made according to the directions of the most
knowing merchants into those Eastern countries. On the knowledge
of the said Garway’s continued care and industry in obtaining the
best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians,
merchants, etc., have resort to his house to drink the drink
thereof. He sells tea from 16s. to 50s. a pound.”
[Illustration: COFFEE-POT. 1737.
Newcastle-on-Tyne.
(Marks illustrated p. 399.)
(_In possession of Messrs. Garrard & Co._)
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY TEAPOT. 1670.
Presented by Lord George Berkeley to the Honourable East India Company.
(_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)]
Here is a seventeenth-century advertisement: can Mincing Lane in the
twentieth century go better?
As to coffee, it is interesting to read the women’s petition to
Parliament, in 1674. They complained that coffee
“made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry
is said to be brought; that the offspring of our mighty ancestors
would dwindle into a succession of apes and pygmies, and on a
domestic message, a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple
of cups of coffee.”
This is in the vein of the modern Suffragist and on the same sub-head.
In 1673 the men of England were fighting against the Dutch at the
engagement off Texel to defend their hearths and homes, coffee or no
coffee.
Apart from the peculiar lantern shape of the first examples, teapots
assumed various forms. They were tall and pear-shaped about 1690. By
1707, is Queen Anne’s day, we find them gourd or melon-shaped till
about 1720. In 1725 they were of lesser height. From the opening years
of the eighteenth century to 1765, the teapots began to assume round
proportions in the body. At a later date they were octagonal. In 1776
they inclined to the Sheraton style, and in 1789 to the Hepplewhite
style of design, both these latter with the straight spout.
That the handle was early of ebony is shown in the example illustrated
(p. 247), with the London hall-marks of 1745, with the gourd-shaped
body. There is something about this example which places it in the
realm of the posset-pot. Its cover is surmounted by a cone ornament.
Its form, strikingly apart from modern tea-table niceties, marks it as
a collector’s piece. Its inscription is of historic interest.
A Kettle and Stand, with spirit-lamp, is of the next year, 1746
(illustrated p. 251). It is the work of the celebrated Paul de Lamerie,
whose genius in working in plate placed him in the leading position
among the silver designers of his period. It must be remembered that
about this time the potter came into serious competition with the
silversmith, especially in regard to teapots and coffee-pots. He
actually did produce, in the early examples of Bow and Worcester and
Coalbrookdale, teapots in blue and white with the same round body as
this tea-kettle. The spout of the potter always presented greater
difficulties in technique than did the spout of the silversmith. In
early types of porcelain it is in form similar to the two silver
examples of teapot and tea-kettle of 1745 and 1746. But the potter
could not attain to the flutings and chased ornament of the worker
in metal. The silversmith’s spout soldered on the body, has spreading
ornament eminently suitable to afford strength at the juncture.
[Illustration: GEORGE II TEAPOT. LONDON, 1745.
With pear-shaped body standing on graduated foot, with finely shaped
ebony handle. Panel bearing inscription: “In token of sincere
Friendship and in Honour of Success at the conquest of the Island of
Cape Breton, Peter Warren, Esqr., Rear-Admiral of the Blue presents
this piece of plate to Sir Willm. Pepperrell, Bart., Louisbourg,
Commander to His Majesty’s Forces. 17 June, 1745.”
(_By courtesy of Messrs. Crichton Brothers._)]
In Paul de Lamerie’s work there is, in the graceful convolutions of the
handle and the equally delightful curves in the tripod legs, something
essentially proper to his craft. No potter could emulate this work. It
would be too capricious in firing, and if made in porcelain it would
be too fragile for use. It is therefore of interest in comparing the
potter’s work with that of his contemporary the plate-worker to see how
in rivalry the masters of the latter craft surpassed the worker in clay
by making the full use of their own particular technique.
In all possibility the eighteenth century teapots were taken by
silver-worker and potter alike from Chinese porcelain prototypes, which
must have come over in considerable numbers in the trading days of John
Company, as we see that the earliest lantern example of the seventeenth
century proceeded from that worthy company, and there was a great
number imported from Holland. Whether this be granted or not, it may be
laid down as a rough rule for guidance that whenever the silver-worker
and the potter produced results closely approaching each other in form,
the worker in metal was not availing himself of the best qualities of
his art. He may have been following the trammels of fashion, or he may
have been a mediocre worker on a lower plane.
That the potter did actually emulate the silversmith can be seen at
once in the Staffordshire silver-lustre teapots, which followed as far
as possible the silver shapes. They were in use in cottages, and set on
the dresser looked very imposing. If the squire’s lady had her silver,
or the farmer’s wife her Sheffield plated set, the cottager had her
lustre ware.
In the museum at Etruria are some models carved in pear-wood of urns
and bowls which Josiah Wedgwood had executed for reproduction in his
ware. These remarkable carved wood vessels exhibit a strong similitude
to the designs of contemporary silver plate. They illustrate the
point that the potter at his highest actually did look with delight
on the creations of the silversmith. It was natural that he should do
so, and it was equally natural that the contemplation of them should
influence his own art. There is a silver teapot designed by John
Flaxman (Wedgwood’s great designer). It is melon-shaped, silver gilt,
chased with scrolls, medallions, and cupids riding on dolphins. It
is inscribed: “Designed by John Flaxman for his esteemed friend and
generous patron Josiah Wedgwood, 1784.” The maker’s mark is I.B. under
a crown, and the date letter is for 1789.
[Illustration: KETTLE WITH STAND AND SPIRIT LAMP. 1746.
Maker, Paul de Lamerie.
(_By courtesy of Messrs. Elkington & Co._)]
The Coffee-pot
In regard to the coffee-pot, there is an example of the date of 1686,
now on view at the London Museum from the collection of Mr. H. D.
Ellis. It will be seen that the coffee-pot was always tall; it never
lessened its height to become possessed of the pear or gourd-shaped or
circular body of its rival. It actually influenced the height and
form of the teapot and it was not until the end of the first quarter of
the eighteenth century that the teapot threw off its similitude to the
coffee-pot in regard to height; and from that date when tea-drinking
had become established, it pursued its own way in design.
The chocolate-pot followed in the wake of the coffee-pot and has
never departed very materially from its early form. It is always
rather smaller than its prototype, and may be distinguished from
the coffee-pot by the handle, which in the chocolate-pot is not set
opposite the spout, as is the case in the teapot and the coffee-pot,
but is in the middle, set at right-angles to the spout.
It is necessary to examine the customs of the period to arrive at
conclusions in regard to silver. In 1697 the Earl of Bristol notes in
his diary the payment “of a bill in full to Mr. Chambers for tea-kettle
and lamp, weight ninety oz. eleven dwts., at six shillings and two
pence.” These tea-kettles were probably no new thing, and, as coffee
came first, were possibly a continuation of similar forms for the
decoction of coffee. They were the forerunners of the tea-urns which
became popular a century later (see illustration p. 325). Tea and
coffee and chocolate, ale and broth, and possibly canary, were all
drunk by different classes of the community at the same time. Before
the introduction of the eighteenth-century teacups--first from Holland
and the East and later from our own porcelain factories, in the first
stages without handles--the new beverage, especially in remote and
unfashionable districts, was drunk from the silver porringers then in
use. At the date of the _Tatler_ the middle classes in the country were
still content with milk, water-porridge, broth, ale, or small beer
for breakfast. The family of John Wesley drank small beer at every
meal. By the third quarter of the eighteenth century Jonas Hanway, who
introduced the umbrella to England, and John Wesley, both declaimed in
vain against the prevalent tea-drinking. Just as in earlier days London
apprentices were to have meat in lieu of salmon, then plentiful in the
Thames, so country maids accepting service in London stipulated that
they were to have tea twice a day.
We are indebted to Catherine of Braganza, the Queen of Charles II,
for the introduction of tea. Edmund Waller, the Court poet, who made
an oration to the Puritan Parliament and saved his neck, has an “Ode
on Tea” eulogizing Catherine and the herb. By the time of Queen Anne
tea-drinking had become a fixed habit. Bishop Burnet, who died in 1715,
drank twenty-five cups in a morning. There was Dr. Johnson at the other
end of the century who drank his sixteen cups at a sitting.
[Illustration: COFFEE-POTS.
GEORGE III. _c._ 1770.
GEORGE II. _c._ 1730.
GEORGE III. _c._ 1775.]
[Illustration: COFFEE-POTS AND TEAPOTS. LATE GEORGE III PERIOD.
(_By courtesy of Messrs. Crichton Brothers._)]
A page of teapots and coffee-pots of varying periods of the eighteenth
century shows the styles in vogue (illustrated p. 255). The upper group
shows a coffee-pot about 1730 with ebony handle, and rather smaller
than some of the later forms. This may be compared with the Newcastle
coffee-pot, of 1737, showing similar character (p. 243). This really
is the established form of the coffee-pot, which has lasted to the
twentieth century, in spite of various deflections in style which were
only transitory. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century it had
become more ornate in character. Its decoration was rococo in style,
and it became massive and impressive in size. It will be observed that
in the specimen of about 1775, on the right, the festoons had become a
prominent form of ornament. The handles in both these larger and later
types are broken, with a point on the lower half turning outwards. The
Edinburgh example of 1769 (illustrated p. 321) shows the same character.
An illustration of a fine coffee-pot with the London hall-mark for
1741 is given as a Frontispiece to this volume. It was made by Peter
Archambo, and bears his initials ~P.A.~ in script in an oval, broken
shield. The lines of this example are of exceptional grace. The
proportions of the body are well balanced. The circular foot with its
fine gradations adds a lightness to the design. The lid is of fine
proportions, and is terminated by a plain cone ornament giving height
to the piece. The handle is of ebony and of pleasing curves. The shaped
spout has a terminal ornament of baluster form joined to the body,
which produces an effect at once original and exquisitely harmonious.
This example is produced by the kindness of Messrs. Carrington & Co. It
belongs to the stormy years of George II and the war of the Austrian
Succession. Frederick of Prussia had seized the rich province of
Silesia, as one of the claimants for the dominions of Maria Theresa of
Austria. Carteret came into power on the fall of Walpole. “What is
it to me,” he said, “who is judge or who is bishop? It is my business
to make kings and emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.”
In 1743, at the Battle of Dettingen, was the last occasion an English
sovereign was in the field, until His Majesty George V broke that
precedent by visiting the British trenches in Flanders.
The lower group on page 255 belongs to the late George III period. The
coffee-pot and teapot on the left belong to the same set. The flat,
spreading knob to the lid is a form of ornament which succeeded the
long-established baluster form and continued with variations to modern
days, and is found in cheap Britannia metal teapots for common use in
early nineteenth-century days. The others on the right exhibit novel
features. The spreading mouth of the pot surmounted by an overhanging
lid is a form which was readily seized by the potter. Some of the early
Staffordshire teapots, notably those by Wedgwood, are in this style,
as it was an easy shape for the potter to work. The spout, apart from
its position low down on the body, is especially a potter’s form. The
coffee-pot at the top, in urn form, with its long foot to give it the
requisite height, is uncommon and did not long survive. The teapot
beneath it has a stand, another innovation adopted by the potter.
[Illustration: EARLY FORMS OF TEA-CADDY: SQUARE AND ROUND.
GEORGE I. 1718 (EXETER).
GEORGE II. 1730 (LONDON).]
[Illustration: LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TYPES: OVAL IN FORM.
GEORGE III. 1775 (LONDON).
GEORGE III. 1784 (LONDON).
Showing evolution in form culminating in the Sheraton tea-caddy.
(_By courtesy of Messrs. Elkington & Co._)]
The Tea-caddy
The early forms of tea-caddy were square or round. It may be imagined
that so precious a beverage had to be stored carefully. Hence the
receptacles for tea were somewhat luxurious in character. We illustrate
a square type representative of the early days of the eighteenth
century (illustrated p. 259). This example was made at Exeter. The
South Sea Bubble was just about to be blown at the formation of the
South Sea Company to take over the national debt. Such a specimen is
of rarity and is worth about £40 or £50. The round example adjacent
is of London make with the hall-marks for 1730, in the opening years
of George II, straight from the days when Sir Robert Walpole governed
England.
The late eighteenth-century types were oval in form. The illustration
of two examples (p. 259) shows this style. The left-hand one is in
date 1775, and its fellow has the London hall-marks for 1784. These
show very clearly the evolution in form culminating in the satinwood
Sheraton variety tea-caddy so much sought after by collectors.
The lines of the silversmith became coincident with the worker in
rare woods. They touch at this date. If one takes Chippendale’s
_Director_ or Sheraton’s design books we can see the progress of
the cabinet-maker, first in mahogany and then in satin and other
beautifully coloured woods, in arriving at a casket similar in
character to the silver-worker’s design.
Half-way between the early and late eighteenth century styles we
illustrate (p. 263) a set of Tea-caddies and a Sugar-box, in date
1760, showing where the silversmith adhered to the higher plane of
his technique, equally evading the plagiarism of the potter or the
cabinet-maker. This set of three vessels is indisputably metal in
every inch of their construction. The bases are reminiscent of the
floral refinements of the Charles II and James II periods. The bowls
have a rotundity and exquisite sprightliness in form, relieved by
chasing that defies the woodworker and cannot be imitated by the
potter. The knobs appertain so strongly to the metal-worker that they
are inimitable. This set, therefore, stands as being exceptionally
interesting in exhibiting the work of the artist in silver kept on a
high level apart from extraneous influences.
The later teapot cannot be said to have much to commend it, if it
be with straight spout and of oval or geometric form. Oftentimes it
is a woodworker’s design with additions. The cabinet-maker has not
essayed to make a wooden teapot. But the silversmith has completed the
hiatus. Take the tea-caddy of 1784 (illustrated p. 259), add a straight
metal spout and a handle; the result is a teapot; but it can hardly
lay claim to being in the first rank of design. It stands with the
modern potter’s results, exceptionally fine in their own field--round,
hexagonal, octagonal, oval, square, or of many other forms, all suited
to his plastic art, but the silver-worker should stand on a plane
apart, and in the best periods he did.
SALE PRICES
COFFEE-POTS.
Queen Anne coffee-pots realize from 50s. to 60s. per oz.
George I coffee-pots about £1 per oz., and George II from 10s. to
13s. per oz.
George III coffee-pots bring from 7s. to 10s. per oz. and George IV
and William IV about 5s. or 6s. per oz.
[Illustration: PAIR OF GEORGE II TEA-CADDIES AND SUGAR-BOX. LONDON,
1760.
(_By courtesy of Messrs. Elkington & Co._)]
TEAPOTS.
All teapots before George I are rare, and bring large prices.
Queen Anne teapots bring £5 to £10 per oz., and specimens sell for
£50 to £80.
On the other hand George II teapots are sold from 15s. to 40s. per
oz.; George II and George IV examples sell for 10s. to 15s. per oz.
TEA-KETTLES.
Queen Anne, with stand and lamp (1709), by N. Locke, sold in 1909
for 200s. per oz., £243.
George I, with stand and spirit-lamp (1715), 130s. per oz., £158.
George II, with stand and spirit-lamp (1738), 38s. per oz., £103.
TEA-CADDIES.
Queen Anne, octagonal (1710), 75s. per oz., £27.
Caddies (2) by Paul de Lamerie (1747), 160s. per oz., £243.
George III, oblong (1760), 30s. per oz., £12.
IX
THE CASTER
THE CENTRE-PIECE
THE SUGAR-BOWL
THE CREAM-PAIL
THE CAKE-BASKET
[Illustration: CASTERS.
1712 (QUEEN ANNE).
Maker, Ti.
(See marks above.)
1701 (WILLIAM III).
Maker, Christopher Canner.
(See marks above.)
(_By courtesy of Messrs. Elkington & Co._)]