CupScout

_How coffee and coffee drinking have been celebrated in painting,
engraving, sculpture, caricature, lithography, and music–Epics,
rhapsodies, and cantatas in praise of coffee–Beautiful specimens
of the art of the potter and the silversmith as shown in the coffee
service of various periods in the world’s history–Some historical
relics_

Coffee has inspired the imagination of many poets, musicians, and
painters. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those whose genius
was dedicated to the fine arts seem to have fallen under its spell and
to have produced much of great beauty that has endured. To the painters,
engravers, and caricaturists of that period we are particularly indebted
for pictures that have added greatly to our knowledge of early coffee
customs and manners.

Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), the Dutch genre painter and etcher,
pupil of Frans Hals, in his “Dutch Coffee House” (1650), shows the
genesis of the coffee house of western Europe about the time it still
partook of some of the tavern characteristics. Coffee is being served to
a group in the foreground. It is believed to be the oldest existing
picture of a coffee house. The illustration is after the etching by J.
Beauvarlet in the graphic collection at Munich.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), the famous English painter and engraver of
satirical subjects, chose the coffee houses of his time for the scenes
of a number of his social caricatures. In his series, “Four Times of the
Day,” which throws a vivid light on the street life of London of the
period of 1738, we are shown Covent Garden at 7:55 A.M. by the clock on
St. Paul’s Church. A prim maiden lady (said to have been sketched from
an elderly relation of the artist, who cut him out of her will) on her
way home from early service, accompanied by a shivering foot-boy, is
scandalized by the spectacle presented by some roystering blades issuing
from Tom King’s notorious coffee house to the right. The _beaux_ are
forcing their attentions upon the more comely of the market women in the
foreground. Tom King was a scholar at Eton before he began his ignoble
career. At the date of this picture, it is thought he had been succeeded
by his widow, Moll King, also of scandalous repute.

Scene VI of the “Rake’s Progress” by Hogarth is laid at the club in
White’s chocolate (coffee) house, which Dr. Swift described as “the
common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies.” The rake has
lost all his recently acquired wealth, pulls off his wig and flings
himself upon the floor in a paroxysm of fury and execration. In allusion
to the burning of White’s in 1733, flames are seen bursting from the
wainscot, but the pre-occupied gamblers take no heed, even of the
watchman crying “Fire!” To the left is seated a highwayman, with horse
pistol and black mask in a skirt pocket of his coat. He is so engrossed
in his thoughts that he does not notice the boy at his side offering a
glass of liquor on a tray. The scene well depicts the low estate to
which White’s had fallen. It recalls a bit of dialogue from Farquhar’s
_Beaux’ Stratagem_ (act III, scene 2), where Aimwell says to Gibbet, who
is a highwayman: “Pray, sir, ha’nt I seen your face at Will’s Coffee
House?” “Yes sir, and at White’s, too,” answers the highwayman.

[Illustration: IN THE CLUB AT WHITE'S COFFEE HOUSE, 1733

From a painting in the series, "The Rake's Progress," by William
Hogarth]

After the fire, the club and chocolate house were removed to Gaunt’s
coffee house. The removal was thus announced in the _Daily Post_ of May
3:

This is to acquaint all noblemen and gentlemen that Mr. Arthur
having had the misfortune to be burnt out of White’s Chocolate
House is removed to Gaunt’s Coffee House, next the St. James Coffee
House in St. James Street, where he humbly begs they will favour
him with their company as usual.

Alessandro Longhi (1733-1813) the Italian painter and engraver, called
the Venetian Hogarth, in one of his pictures presenting life and manners
in Venice during the years of her decadence, shows Goldoni, the
dramatist, as a visitor in a café of the period, with a female mendicant
soliciting alms.

In the Louvre at Paris hangs the “Petit Déjeuner” by François Boucher
(1703-1770), famous court painter of Louis XV. It shows a French
breakfast-room of the period of 1744, and is interesting because it
illustrates the introduction of coffee into the home; it shows also the
coffee service of the time.

In Van Loo’s portrait of Madame de Pompadour, second mistress and
political adviser of Louis XV of France, the coffee service of a later
period of the eighteenth century appears. The Nubian servant is shown
offering the marquise a demi-tasse which has just been poured from the
covered oriental pot which succeeded the original Arabian-Turkish
boiler, and was much in vogue at the time.

Coffee and Madame du Barry (or would it be more polite to say Madame du
Barry and coffee?) inspired the celebrated painting of Madame de
Pompadour’s successor in the affections of Louis “the well beloved.”
This is entitled “Madame du Barry at Versailles”, and in the Versailles
catalog it is described as painted by Decreuse after Drouais. Decreuse
was a pupil of Gros, and painted many of the historical portraits at
Versailles.

[Illustration: TOM KING'S COFFEE HOUSE IS COVENT GARDEN, 1738

From a printing in the series, "Four Times of the Day," by William
Hogarth]

Malcolm C. Salaman, in his _French Color Prints of the XVIII Century_,
referring to Dagoty’s print of this picture, done in 1771, says, “the
original has been attributed to François Hubert Drouais, but there can
be little doubt that the original portraiture was from the hand of the
engraver (Dagoty), as the style is far inferior to Drouais.” He thus
describes it:

Here we see the last of Louis XV’s mistresses, sitting in her
bedroom in that alluring retreat of hers at Louveciennes, near the
woods of Marly, as she takes her cup of coffee from her pet
attendant, the little negro boy, Zamore, as the Prince de Conti had
named him, all brave in red and gold. Doubtless she is expecting
the morning visit of the King, no longer the handsome young
gallant, but old and leaden-eyed, and puffy-cheeked; and perhaps it
will be on this very morning that she will wheedle Louis, in a
moment of extravagant badinage, into appointing the negro boy to be
Governor of the Chateau and Pavilion of Louveciennes at a handsome
salary, just as, on another day, she playfully teased the jaded old
sensualist into decorating with the cordon bleu her cuisinière when
it was triumphantly revealed to him that the dinner he had been
praising with enthusiastic gusto was, after all, the work of a
woman cook, the very possibility of which he had contemptuously
doubted. But as we look at these two, the royal mistress and her
little black favorite, we forget the “well beloved” and his
voluptuous pleasures and indulgences, for in the shadows we see
another picture, some twenty years on, when the proud
unconscionable beauty, no longer _reine de la main gauche_, stands
before the dreaded Tribunal of the Terror, while Zamore, the
treacherous, ungrateful negro, dismissed from his service at
Louveciennes and now devoted to the committee of public safety, and
one of her implacable accusers, sends her shrieking to the
guillotine.

[Illustration: "PETIT DÉJEUNER," BY BOUCHER

Showing the home coffee service of the period of 1744]

[Illustration: COFFEE SERVICE IN THE HOME OF MADAME DE
POMPADOUR--PAINTING BY VAN LOO]

The introduction of the coffee house into Europe was memorialized by
Franz Schams, the genre painter, pupil of the Vienna Academy, in a
beautiful picture entitled “The First Coffee House in Vienna, 1684,”
owned by the Austrian Art Society. A lithographic reproduction was
executed by the artist and printed by Joseph Stoufs in Vienna. There are
several specimens in the United States; and the illustration printed on
page 48 has been made from one of these in the possession of the author.

The picture shows the interior of the Blue Bottle, where Kolschitzky
opened the first coffee house in Vienna. The hero-proprietor stands in
the foreground pouring a cup of the beverage from an oriental coffee
pot, and another is suspended from the coffee-house sign that hangs over
the fireplace. In the fire alcove a woman is pounding coffee in a
mortar. Men and women in the costumes of the period are being served
coffee by a Vienna _mädchen_.

[Illustration: MADAME DU BARRY AND HER SLAVE BOY ZAMORE--PAINTING BY
DECREUSE]

The painters Marilhat, Descamps, and de Tournemine have pictured café
scenes; the first in his “Café sur une route de Syrie”, which was shown
at the Salon of 1844; the second in his “Café Turc”, which figured at
the Exposition of 1855; and the third in his “Café en Asia Mineure”,
which received honors at the Salon of 1859, and attracted attention at
the Universal Exposition of 1867.

A decorative panel designed for the buffet at the Paris Opera House by
S. Mazerolles was shown at the Exposition of 1878. A French artist,
Jacquand, has painted two charming compositions; one representing the
reading room, and the other the interior, of a café.

Many German artists have shown coffee manners and customs in pictures
that are now hanging in well known European galleries. Among others,
mention should be made of C. Schmidt’s “The Sweets Shop of Josty in
Berlin”, 1845; Milde’s “Pastor Rautenberg and His Family at the Coffee
Table”, 1833; and his “Manager Classen and His Family at the Afternoon
Coffee Table”, 1840; Adolph Menzel’s “Parisian Boulevard Café”, 1870;
Hugo Meith’s “Saturday Afternoon at the Coffee Table”; John Philipp’s
“Old Woman with Coffee Cup”; Friedrich Walle’s “Afternoon Coffee in the
Court Gardens at Munich”; Paul Meyerheim’s “Oriental Coffee House”; and
Peter Philippi’s (Dusseldorf) “Kaffeebesuch.”

At the Exposition des Beaux Arts, Salon of 1881, there was shown P.A.
Ruffio’s picture, “Le café vient au secours de la Muse” (Coffee comes to
the aid of the Muse), in which the graceful form of an oriental ewer
appears.

The “Coffee House at Cairo,” a canvas by Jean Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has been much
admired. It shows the interior of a typical oriental coffee house with
two men near a furnace at the left preparing the beverage; a man seated
on a wicker basket about to smoke a hooka; a dervish dancing; and
several persons seated against the wall in the background.

[Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE AT CAIRO--PAINTING BY GÉRÔME IN THE
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK]

The New York Historical Society acquired in 1907 from Miss Margaret A.
Ingram an oil painting of the “Tontine Coffee House.” It was painted in
Philadelphia by Francis Guy, and was sold at a raffle, after having been
admired by President John Adams. It shows lower Wall Street in
1796-1800, with the Tontine coffee house on the northwest corner of Wall
and Water Streets, where its more famous predecessor, the Merchants
coffee house, was located before it moved to quarters diagonally
opposite.

Charles P. Gruppe’s (_b._ 1860) painting showing General “Washington’s
Official Welcome to New York by City and State Officials at the
Merchants Coffee House,” April 23, 1789, just one week before his
inauguration as first president of the United States, is a colorful
canvas that has been much praised for its atmosphere and historical
associations. It is the property of the author.

The art museums and libraries of every country contain many beautiful
water-colors, engravings, prints, drawings, and lithographs, whose
creators found inspiration in coffee. Space permits the mention of only
a few.

T.H. Shepherd has preserved for us Button’s, afterward the Caledonien
coffee house, Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, in a water-color
drawing of 1857; Tom’s coffee house, 17 Great Russell Street, Covent
Garden, 1857; Slaughter’s coffee house in St. Martin’s Lane, 1841; also,
in 1857, the Lion’s Head at Button’s, put up by Addison and now the
property of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn.

[Illustration: "KAFFEEBESUCH"

From the painting by Peter Philippi]

[Illustration: "COFFEE COMES TO THE AID OF THE MUSE"

From the painting by Ruffio]

Hogarth figures in the Sam Ireland collection with several original
drawings of frequenters of Button’s in 1730.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) the great English caricaturist and
illustrator, has given us several fine pictures of English coffee-house
life. His “Mad Dog in a Coffee House” presents a lively scene; and his
water-color of “The French Coffee House” is one of the best pictures we
have of the French coffee house in London as it looked during the latter
half of the eighteenth century.

During the campaign in France in 1814, Napoleon arrived one day,
unheralded, in a country presbytery, where the good curé was quietly
turning his hand coffee-roaster. The emperor asked him, “What are you
doing there, abbé?” “Sire”, replied the priest, “I am doing like you. I
am burning the colonial fodder.” Charlet (1792-1845) made a lithograph
of the incident.

Several French poet-musicians resorted to music to celebrate coffee.
Brittany has its own songs in praise of coffee, as have other French
provinces. There are many epics, rhapsodies, and cantatas–and even a
comic opera by Meilhat, music by Deffes, bearing the title, _Le Café du
Roi_, produced at the Théâtre Lyrique, November 16, 1861.

[Illustration: "MAD DOG IN A COFFEE HOUSE"--CARICATURE BY ROWLANDSON]

Fuzelier wrote, in honor of coffee, a cantata, set to music by Bernier.
This is the burden of the poet’s song:

Ah coffee, what climes yet unknown,
Ignore the clear fires that thy vapors inspire!
Thou countest, in thy vast empire
Those realms that Bacchus’ reign disown.
Favored liquid, which fills all my soul with delights,
Thy enchantments to life happy hours persuade,
We vanquish e’en sleep by thy fortunate aid,
Thou hast rescued the hours sleep would rob from our nights.
Favored liquid which fills all my soul with delights,
Thy enchantments to life happy hours persuade.

Oh liquid that I love,
Triumphant stream of sable,
E’en for the gods above,
Drive nectar from the table.
Make thou relentless war
On treacherous juices sly,
Let earth taste and adore
The sweet calm of the sky.
Oh liquid that I love,
Triumphant stream of sable,
E’en for the gods above,
Drive nectar from the table.

During the early vogue of the café in Paris, a _chanson_, entitled
_Coffee_, reproduced here, was set to music with accompaniment for the
piano by M.H. Colet, a professor of harmony at the Conservatoire.
Printed in the form of a placard, and put up in cafés, it received the
approbation of, and was signed by, de Voyer d’Argenson, at that time
(1711) lieutenant of police. The poetry is not irreproachable. It can
hardly be attributed to any of the well known poets of the time; but
rather to one of those bohemian rimesters that wrote all too abundantly
on all sorts of subjects. It is the development of a theory concerning
the properties of coffee and the best method of making it. It is
interesting to note that the uses of advertising were known and
appreciated in Paris in 1711; for in the _chanson_ there appears the
name and address of one Vilain, a merchant, rue des Lombards, who was
evidently in fashion at that period. The translation of the stanza
reproduced is as follows:

COFFEE–A CHANSON

If you, with mind untroubled,
Would flourish, day by day,
Let each day of the seven
Find coffee on your tray.
It will your frame preserve from every malady,
Its virtues drive afar, la! la!
Migrain and dread catarrh–ha! ha!
Dull cold and lethargy.

The most notable contribution to the “music of coffee,” if one may be
permitted the expression, is the _Coffee Cantata_ of Johann Sebastian
Bach (1685-1750) the German organist and the most modern composer of the
first half of the eighteenth century. He hymned the religious sentiment
of protestant Germany; and in his _Coffee Cantata_ he tells in music the
protest of the fair sex against the libels of the enemies of the
beverage, who at the time were actively urging in Germany that it should
be forbidden women, because its use made for sterility! Later on, the
government surrounded the manufacture, sale, and use of coffee with many
obnoxious restrictions, as told in chapter VIII.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON AND THE CURÉ--LITHOGRAPH BY CHARLET]

Bach’s _Coffee Cantata_ is No. 211 of the _Secular Cantatas_, and was
published in Leipzig in 1732. In German it is known as _Schweigt stille,
plaudert nicht_ (Be silent, do not talk). It is written for soprano,
tenor, and bass solos and orchestra. Bach used as his text a poem by
Piccander. The cantata is really a sort of one-act operetta–a jocose
production representing the efforts of a stern parent to check his
daughter’s propensities in coffee drinking, the new fashioned habit. One
seldom thinks of Bach as a humorist; but the music here is written in a
mock-heroic vein, the recitatives and arias having a merry flavor,
hinting at what the master might have done in light opera.

[Illustration: COFFEE--A CHANSON; MUSIC BY COLET, 1711]

The libretto shows the father Schlendrian, or Slowpoke, trying by
various threats to dissuade his daughter from further indulgence in the
new vice, and, in the end, succeeding by threatening to deprive her of a
husband. But his victory is only temporary. When the mother and the
grandmother indulge in coffee, asks the final trio, who can blame the
daughter?

Bach uses the spelling coffee–not _kaffee_. The cantata was sung as
recently as December 18, 1921, at a concert in New York by the Society
of the Friends of Music, directed by Arthur Bodanzky.

Lieschen, or Betty, the daughter, has a delightful aria, beginning, “Ah,
how sweet coffee tastes–lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far
than muscatel wine!” the opening bars of which are reproduced on page
598.

As the text is not long, it is printed here in its entirety.

[Illustration: STATUE OF KOLSCHITZKY IN VIENNA]

_CHARACTERS_

MESSENGER AND NARRATOR _Tenor_
SLOWPOKE _Bass_
BETTY, DAUGHTER TO SLOWPOKE _Soprano_

TENOR (_Recitative_): Be silent, do not talk, but notice what will
happen! Here comes old Slowpoke with his daughter Betty. He’s
grumbling like a common bear–just listen to what he says.

(_Enter_ SLOWPOKE _muttering_): What vexatious things one’s
children are! A hundred thousand naughty ways! What I tell my
daughter Betty might as well be told to the moon! (_Enter_ BETTY.)

SLOWPOKE (_Recitative_): You naughty child, you mischievous girl,
oh when can I have my way–give up your coffee!

BETTY: Dear father, do not be so strict! If I can’t have my little
demi-tasse of coffee three times a day, I’m just like a dried up
piece of roast goat!

BETTY (_Aria_): Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a
thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my
coffee, and if any one wishes to please me, let him present me
with–coffee!

SLOWPOKE _(Recitative_): If you won’t give up coffee, young lady, I
won’t let you go to any wedding feasts–I won’t even let you go
walking!

BETTY: O yes! Do let me have my coffee!

SLOWPOKE: What a little monkey you are, anyway! I will not let you
have any whale-bone skirts of the present fashionable size!

BETTY: Oh, I can easily fix _that_!

SLOWPOKE: But I won’t let you stand at the window and watch the new
styles!

BETTY: That doesn’t bother me, either. But be good and let me have
my coffee!

SLOWPOKE: But from my hands you’ll get no silver or gold ribbon for
your hair!

BETTY: Oh well! so long as I have what does satisfy me!

SLOWPOKE: You wretched Betty, you! You won’t give in to me?

SLOWPOKE (_Air_): Oh these girls–what obstinate dispositions they
do have! They certainly are not easy to manage! But if one hits the
right spot–oh well, one _may_ succeed!

SLOWPOKE, _with an air of being sure of success this time_
(_Recitative_): Now please do what father says.

BETTY: In everything, except about coffee.

SLOWPOKE: Well, then, you must make up your mind to do without a
husband.

BETTY: Oh–yes? Father, a husband?

SLOWPOKE: I swear you can’t have him–

BETTY: Till I give up coffee? Oh well–coffee–let it be
forgotten–dear father–I will not drink–none!

SLOWPOKE: _Then_ you can have one!

BETTY (_Aria_): Today, dear father–do it _today_. (_He goes out._)
Ah, a husband! Really this suits me exactly! When they know I must
have coffee, why, before I go to bed to-night I can have a valiant
lover! (_Goes out._)

TENOR (_Recitative_): Now go hunt up old Slowpoke, and just watch
him get a husband for his daughter–for Betty is secretly making it
known “that no wooer may come to the house, unless he promises me
himself, and has it put in the marriage contract that he will allow
me to make coffee whenever I will!”

[Illustration: "AH, HOW SWEET COFFEE TASTES--LOVELIER THAN A THOUSAND
KISSES, SWEETER FAR THAN MUSCATEL WINE!"

Opening bars of Betty's aria in Bach's _Coffee Cantata_, 1732]

(_Enter_ SLOWPOKE _and_ BETTY, _singing–as chorus–with_ TENOR.)

TRIO: The cat will not give up the mouse, old maids continue
“coffee-sisters!”–the mother loves her drink of coffee–grandma,
too, is a coffee fiend–_who_ now will blame the daughter!

[Illustration: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COFFEE HOUSE IN THE WORLD

The Caffè Pedrocchi in Padua, Italy, empire period, erected by the poor
lemonade vendor and coffee seller, Antonio Pedrocchi.]

Research has discovered only one piece of sculpture associated with
coffee–the statue of the Austrian hero Kolschitzky, the patron saint of
the Vienna coffee houses. It graces the second-floor corner of a house
in the Favoriten Strasse, where it was erected in his honor by the
Coffee Makers’ Guild of Vienna. The great “brother-heart” is shown in
the attitude of pouring coffee into cups on a tray from an oriental
service pot.

The celebrated Caffè Pedrocchi, the center of life in the city of Padua,
Italy, in the early part of the nineteenth century, is one of the most
beautiful buildings erected in Italy. Its use is apparent at first
glance. It was begun in 1816, opened June 9, 1831, and completed in
1842. Antonio Pedrocchi (1776-1852), an obscure Paduan coffee-house
keeper, tormented by a desire for glory, conceived the idea of building
the most beautiful coffee house in the world, and carried it out.

Artists and craftsmen of all ages since the discovery of coffee have
brought their genius into play to fashion various forms of apparatus
associated with the preparation of the coffee drink. Coffee roasters and
grinders have been made of brass, silver, and gold; coffee mortars, of
bronze; and coffee making and serving pots, of beautiful copper, pewter,
pottery, porcelain, and silver designs.

In the Peter collection in the United States National Museum there is to
be seen a fine specimen of the Bagdad coffee pot made of beaten copper
and used for making and serving; also, a beautiful Turkish coffee set.
In the Metropolitan Museum in New York there are some beautiful
specimens of Persian and Egyptian ewers in faience, probably used for
coffee service. Also, in American and continental museums are to be seen
many examples of seventeenth-century German, Dutch, and English bronze
mortars and pestles used for “braying” coffee beans to make coffee
powder.

[Illustration: COFFEE GRINDER SET WITH JEWELS

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

A very beautiful specimen of the oriental coffee grinder, made of brass
and teakwood, set with red and green glass jewels, and inlaid in the
teakwood with ivory and brass, is at the Metropolitan. This is of
Indo-Persian design of the nineteenth century.

The Metropolitan Museum shows also many specimens of pewter coffee pots
used in India, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Russia, and England in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

One can guess at the luxuriousness of the coffee pots in use in France
throughout the eighteenth century by noting that from March 20, 1754, to
April 16, 1755, Louis XV bought no fewer than three gold coffee pots of
Lazare Duvaux. They had carved branches, and were supplied with “chafing
dishes of burnished steel” and lamps for spirits of wine. They cost,
respectively, 1,950, 1,536, and 2,400 francs. In the “inventory of
Marie-Josephe de Saxe, Dauphine of France”, we note, too, a “two cup
coffee pot of gold with its chafing dish for spirits of wine in a
leather case.”

The Italian wrought-iron coffee roaster of the seventeenth century was
often a work of art. The specimen illustrated is rich in decorative
motifs associated with the best in Florentine art.

Madame de Pompadour’s inventory disclosed a “gold coffee mill, carved in
colored gold to represent the branches of a coffee tree.” The art of
gold, which sought to embellish everything, did not disdain these homely
utensils; and one may see at the Cluny Museum in Paris, among many mills
of graceful form, a coffee mill of engraved iron dating from the
eighteenth century, upon which are represented the four seasons. We are
told, however, that it graced the “sale after the death of Mme. de
Pompadour”, which, of course, makes it much more valuable.

[Illustration: ITALIAN WROUGHT-IRON COFFEE ROASTER

Courtesy of _Edison Monthly_]

“The tea pot, coffee pot and chocolate pot first used in England closely
resembled each other in form”, says Charles James Jackson in his
_Illustrated History of English Plate_, “each being circular in plan,
tapering towards the top, and having its handle fixed at a right angle
with the spout.”

[Illustration: Tea Pot, 1670

Coffee Pot, 1681

Coffee Pot, 1689

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY TEA POTS AND COFFEE POTS]

He says further:

The earliest examples were of oriental ware and the form of these
was adopted by the English plate workers as a model for others of
silver. It apparently was not until after both tea and coffee had
been used for several years in this country [England] that the tea
pot was made proportionately less in height and greater in diameter
than the coffee pot. This distinction, which was probably due to
copying the forms of Chinese porcelain tea pots, was afterwards
maintained, and to the present day the difference between the tea
pot and the coffee pot continued to be mainly one of height.

The coffee pot illustrated (1681) formerly belonged to the East India
Company, and is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is
almost identical with a tea pot (1670) in the same museum, except that
its straight spout is fixed nearer to the base, as is its
leather-covered handle, which, with the sockets into which it fits,
forms a long recurving scroll fixed opposite to and in line with the
spout. Its cover, which is hinged to the upper handle socket, is high
like that of the 1670 tea-pot; but instead of the straight outline of
that cover, this is slightly waved and surmounted by a somewhat flat
button-shaped knob. Engraved on the body is a shield of arms, a chevron
between three crosses fleury, surrounded by tied feathers. The
inscription is, “The Guift of Richard Sterne Eq to ye Honorable East
India Compa.”

This pot is nine and three-quarters inches in height by four and
seven-eighths inches in diameter at the base; it bears the London
hall-marks of 1681-82 and the maker’s mark “G.G.” in a shaped shield,
thought by Jackson to be George Garthorne’s mark.

The 1689 coffee pot illustrated is the property of King George V. It
bears the London hall-marks of 1689-90, and the mark of Francis
Garthorne. Its tall, round body tapers toward the top, and has applied
moldings on the base and rim. Its spout is straight and tapers upward to
the level of the rim of the pot. Its handle is of ebony,
crescent-shaped, and riveted into two sockets fixed at a right angle
with the spout. The lid is a high cone surmounted by a small vase-shaped
finial, and is hinged to the upper socket of the handle. On no part of
the pot is there any ornamentation other than the royal cipher of King
William III and Queen Mary, which is engraved on the reverse side of the
body. This example, which measures nine inches in height to the top of
its cover, resembles very closely in form the East India Company’s
tea-pot just referred to; but as teapots with much lower bodies appear
to have come into fashion before 1689, this pot was probably used as a
coffee pot from the first.

The 1692 coffee pot of lantern shape is the property of H.D. Ellis, and
has its spout curved upward at the top, being furnished with a small,
hinged flap and a scroll-shaped thumb-piece attached to the rim of the
cover. The body and cover were originally quite plain, the embossing and
chasing with symmetrical rococo decoration being added later, probably
about 1740. Jackson says the wooden handle is not the original one,
which was probably C-shaped. The pot bears the usual London hall-marks
for the year 1692 and the maker’s mark is “G G” upon a shaped shield, a
mark recorded upon the copper plate belonging to the Goldsmiths’
company, which Mr. Cripps thinks was that of George Garthorne. The
characteristics of this lantern shaped coffee pot are:

1. The straight sides, so rapidly tapering from the base upward
that in a height of only six inches the base diameter of four and
three-eighths inches tapers to a diameter of no more than two and
one-half inches at the rim.

2. The nearly straight spout, furnished with a flap or shutter.

3. The true cone of the lid.

4. The thumb-piece, which is a familiar feature upon the tankards
of the period.

5. The handle fixed at right angles to the spout.

[Illustration: LANTERN COFFEE POT, 1692]

[Illustration: FOLKINGHAM POT, 1715-16]

Mr. Ellis, in a paper before the Society of Antiquaries[361] on the
earliest form of coffee pot, says:

If coffee was first introduced into this country by the Turkey
merchants, nothing is more probable than that those who first
brought the berry, brought also the vessel in which it was to be
served. Such a vessel would be the Turkish ewer whose shape is
familiar to us, the same today as two hundred years ago, for in the
East things are slow to change. And throughout the reign of the
second Charles, so long as the extended use of coffee in the houses
of the people was retarded by the opposition of the Women of
England, and by the scarcely less powerful influence of the King’s
Court, the small requirements of a mere handful of coffee-houses
would be easily met by the importation of Turkish vessels.
Reference to the coffee-house keepers’ tokens in the Beaufoy
collection in the Guildhall Museum shows that many of the traders
of 1660-1675 adopted as their trade sign a hand pouring coffee from
a pot. This pot is invariably of the Turkish ewer pattern. It is
true that there is nothing to show that the Turks themselves ever
served coffee from the ewer, but it is scarcely conceivable that
the English coffee-house keepers should have adopted as their trade
sign, their pictorial advertisement, so to speak, a vessel which
had no connection with the commodity in which they dealt, and which
would convey no meaning associated with coffee to the public. But
as soon as the extended use of the beverage created a demand which
stimulated a home manufacture of coffee-pots, a new departure is
apparent. The undulating outlines beloved by the Orientals, bowed
as their scimitars, curvilinear as their graceful flowing script,
do not commend themselves to the more severe Western taste of the
period which had then declared its preference for sweet simplicity
in silversmiths’ work, such as we see in the basons, cups, and
especially the flat-topped tankards of that day. The beauty of the
straight line had asserted its power, and fashion felt its sway.
Such was the feeling that produced the coffee-pot of 1692, the
straight lines of which continued in vogue until the middle of the
following century, when a reaction in favour of bulbous bodies and
serpentine spouts set in.

[Illustration: WASTELL POT, 1720-21]

Some of the more notable of the coffee-house-keepers’ tokens in the
Guildhall Museum were photographed for this work. They are described and
illustrated in chapter X.

There are illustrated other silver coffee pots in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, by Folkingham (1715-16), and by Wastell (1720-21), the
latter pot being octagonal.

There is illustrated 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.”

[Illustration: "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, illustrated, 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.

[Illustration: CHINESE PORCELAIN COFFEE POT

Late seventeenth century]

The evolution is shown by illustrations 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
illustrations on pages 604, 605 and 607).

[Illustration: Vincent Pot, Hall-marked, London, 1738

Lord Swaythling's Pot, 1731

SILVER COFFEE POTS, EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

From Jackson's "Illustrated History of English Plate"]

There are illustrated 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.

[Illustration: IRISH COFFEE POT, 1760

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

[Illustration: VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY'S COFFEE POT]

[Illustration: A SCOFIELD POT OF 1779-80]

[Illustration: COFFEE JUG, 1736]

[Illustration: SILVER COFFEE POTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: SALT-GLAZE POT

By John Astbury]

[Illustration: ELERS WARE COFFEE POT

Stoneware, about 1700]

[Illustration: SALT-GLAZE POT

About 1725]

[Illustration: POTS IN POTTERY AND PORCELAIN 18TH TO 20TH CENTURIES

1--Staffordshire; 2--English, eighteen to twentieth centuries;
3--English, blue printed ware, eighteenth to nineteenth centuries;
4--Leeds, 1760-1790; 5--Staffordshire, nineteenth to twentieth
centuries]

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.

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration: Sino-Lowestoft, Eighteenth To Nineteenth Centuries]

[Illustration: ITALIAN CAPODIMONTE, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: LA SEINE, 1774

SÈVRES, 1792

GERMAN POTS, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: PORCELAIN POTS IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK]

The Colonial silversmiths marked their wares with their initials,
with or without emblems, placed in shields, 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.

[Illustration: VIENNA COFFEE POT, 1830

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

[Illustration: 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 godrooned 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.

[Illustration:

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

]

[Illustration:

London Pot, 1773-74 By Jacob Hurd By Paul Revere
FROM FRANCIS HILL BIGELOW'S "HISTORIC SILVER OF THE COLONIES"

]

[Illustration: ENGLISH SHEFFIELD PLATE COFFEE POTS AND COFFEE URN,
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: SILVER COFFEE POTS IN AMERICAN COLLECTIONS]

[Illustration: COFFEE POT BY WM. SHAW AND WM. PRIEST

Made for Peter Faneuil (about 1751-52), who gave to Boston Faneuil Hall,
called the cradle of American liberty]

[Illustration: POT OF SHEFFIELD PLATE, 18TH CENTURY

In the Metropolitan Museum]

[Illustration: SILVER POT BY EPHRAIM BRASHER

In the Clearwater Collection, Metropolitan Museum]

In the Halsey collection is shown a silver coffee pot by Samuel Minott,
and several beautiful specimens of the handiwork of Paul Revere, whose
name is more often connected with the famous “midnight ride” than with
the art of the silversmith. Of all the American silversmiths, Paul
Revere was the most interesting. Not only was he a silversmith of
renown, but a patriot, soldier, grand master Mason, confidential agent
of the state of Massachusetts Bay, engraver, picture-frame designer, and
die-sinker. He was born in Boston in 1735, and died in 1818. He was the
most famous of all the Boston silversmiths, although he is more widely
known as a patriot. He was the third of a family of twelve children, and
early entered his father’s shop. When only nineteen, his father died;
but he was able to carry on the business. The engraving on his silver
bears witness to his ability. He engraved also on copper, and made many
political cartoons. He joined the expedition against the French at Crown
Point, and in the war of the Revolution was a lieutenant-colonel of
artillery. After the close of the war, he resumed his business of a
goldsmith and silversmith in 1783. Decidedly a man of action, he well
played many parts; and in all his manifold undertakings achieved
brilliant success. There clings, therefore, to the articles of silver
made by him an element of romantic and patriotic association which
endears them to those who possess them.

[Illustration: FRENCH SILVER COFFEE POT

Grand Prize, Union Centrale, 1886.]

Revere had a real talent that enabled him to impart an unwonted elegance
to his work, and he was famous as an engraver of the beautiful crests,
armorial designs, and floral wreaths that adorn much of his work. His
tea pots and coffee pots are unusually beautiful.

Revere coffee pots are to be seen in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as
well as in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The Boston Museum of
Fine Arts has also a coffee pot made by William Shaw and William Priest
in 1751-52 for Peter Faneuil, the wealthiest Bostonian of his time, who
gave to Boston Faneuil Hall, New England’s cradle of American liberty.

Among other American silversmiths who produced striking designs in
coffee pots, mention should be made of G. Aiken (1815); Garrett Eoff
(New York, 1785-1850); Charles Faris (who worked in Boston about 1790);
Jacob Hurd (1702-1758, known in Boston as Captain Hurd); John McMullin
(mentioned in the Philadelphia _Directory_ for 1796); James Musgrave
(mentioned in Philadelphia directories of 1797, 1808, and 1811); Myer
Myers (admitted as freeman, New York, 1746; active until 1790; president
of the New York Silversmiths Society, 1786); and Anthony Rasch (who is
known to have worked in Philadelphia, 1815).

In the museums of the many historical societies throughout the United
States are to be seen interesting specimens of coffee pots in pewter,
Britannia metal, and tin ware, as well as in pottery, porcelain, and
silver. Some of these are illustrated.

[Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON TAVERN COFFEE URN]

As in other branches of art during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the United States were indebted to England, Holland, and
France for much of the early pottery and porcelain. Elers, Astbury,
Whieldon, Wedgwood, their imitators, and the later Staffordshire
potters, flooded the American market with their wares. Porcelain was not
made in this country previous to the nineteenth century. Decorative
pottery was made here, however, from an early period. Britannia ware
began to take the place of pewter in 1825; and the introduction of
japanned tin ware and pottery gradually caused the manufacture of pewter
to be abandoned.

[Illustration:

By an unknown silversmith By Paul Revere By Paul Revere

COFFEE POTS BY AMERICAN SILVERSMITHS]

[Illustration: TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN COFFEE SERVICE

The Portsmouth Pattern, by the Gorham Co.]

An interesting relic is in the collection of the Bostonian Society. It
is a coffee urn of Sheffield ware, formerly in the Green Dragon tavern,
which stood on Union Street from 1697 to 1832, and was a famous meeting
place of the patriots of the Revolution. It is globular in form, and
rests on a base; and inside is still to be seen the cylindrical piece of
iron which, when heated, kept the delectable liquid contents of the urn
hot until imbibed by the frequenters of the tavern. The iron bar was set
in a zinc or tin jacket to keep such fireplace ashes as still clung to
it from coming in contact with the coffee, which was probably brewed in
a stew kettle before being poured into the urn for serving. The Green
Dragon tavern site, now occupied by a business structure, is owned by
the St. Andrew’s Lodge of Freemasons of Boston; and at a recent
gathering of the lodge on St. Andrew’s Day, the urn was exhibited to the
assembled brethren.

When the contents of the tavern were sold, the urn was bought by Mrs.
Elizabeth Harrington, who then kept a famous boarding-house on Pearl
Street, in a building owned by the Quincy family. The house was razed in
1847, and was replaced by the Quincy Block; and Mrs. Harrington removed
to High Street, and from there to Chauncey Place. Some of the prominent
men of Boston boarded with her for many years. At her death, the urn was
given to her daughter, Mrs. John R. Bradford. It was presented to the
society by Miss Phebe C. Bradford, of Boston, granddaughter of Mrs.
Elizabeth Harrington.

A somewhat similar urn, made of pewter, is in the Museum of the Maine
Historical Society of Portland, Me.; another in the Museum of the Essex
Institute at Salem, Mass.

Among the many treasured relics of Abraham Lincoln is an old Britannia
coffee pot from which he was regularly served while a boarder with the
Rutledge family at the Rutledge inn in New Salem (now Menard), Ill. It
was a valued utensil, and Lincoln is said to have been very fond of it.
It is illustrated on page 690.

The pot is now the property of the Old Salem Lincoln League, of
Petersburg, Ill., and was donated to it, with other relics, by Mrs.
Saunders, of Sisquoc, Cal., the only surviving child of James and Mary
Ann Rutledge. Mrs. Rutledge carefully preserved this and other relics of
New Salem days; and shortly before her death in 1878, she gave them into
the keeping of her daughter, Mrs. Saunders, advising her to preserve
them until such time as a permanent home for them would be provided by a
grateful people back at New Salem, where they were associated with the
immortal Lincoln and his tragic romance with her daughter Ann.

[Illustration: TURKISH COFFEE SET, PETER COLLECTION, UNITED STATES
NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON]