COFFEE IN RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS Page 7

Illustrated, 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 Staffordshire 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 Sèvres pot of 1792–1804; and a Spanish eighteenth-century coffee pot decorated in copper luster.

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.

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 fashioned 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 assayed and marked with the king's mark (hall-mark) testifying to the fineness of the metal.

Sino-Lowestoft, Eighteenth To Nineteenth Centuries

Italian Capodimonte, Eighteenth Century