Teapot

Date1714-1715

Artist/Maker Pentecost Symonds

MediumSilver (Britannia)

DimensionsOH: 6 1/8" ; H(rim): 3 7/8"; D(rim): 2 9/16"; D(base): 4 1/2"; D(base): 3 1/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1954-535

DescriptionTeapot: cast peaked finial with circular pear wood inset and nut-and-bolt attachment through top of cover; tall domed cover with lattice of cut-card decoration incorporating bell-flowers issuing from base of finial and extending down below shoulder of cover; drawn and applied molding at rim of cover with bezel fitting within rim of body; cover attached by right-angle hinge to upper handle socket; straight-sided cylindrical handle sockets with molding at outer edge; pear wood handle with scrolled grip fitting sockets and pinned on either side of each socket with silver nails; pear-shaped body with drawn and applied multiple molding at rim and molding at contraflexure between contracted neck of concave profile and bulbous lower section; curved spout with pane led lower section of octagonal plan and molding at juncture of spout with body; applied tip on exterior of spout above opening possibly part of original spout cover assembly; bilaterally-symmetrical conventionalized foliate piercing of body behind spout; body supported on short straight-sided foot.

Weight: 14 oz. 17 dwt.

Label TextDuring the Commonwealth period, fashionable Londoners were introduced to the drinking of tea, coffee, and chocolate. These exotic beverages, especially tea, had an enormous impact on social customs and the decorative arts. The earliest surviving English silver teapot, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, was made in 1670 and presented by George Berkeley to the East India Company. Except for the inscription indicating its intended use, it would be readily confused with early coffeepots of similar form having tall bodies with tapered straight sides, tall conical covers, and straight spouts (see accession 1954-577).

The earliest example is followed by three teapots of melon form with curved spouts, influenced by oriental wine pots. These include a plain example made before 1679 for Archbishop Sharp of St. Andrew's, probably by Robert Smythier of London; a silver gilt example with matted panels of about 1685 by Benjamin Pyne of London in the Carter collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and a similar silver gilt example of about 1685, possibly by William Hoare of London, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Small so-called cordial pots of late seventeenth-century date may have also served as teapots.

During the first quarter of the eighteenth century, silver teapots increased in number. In their squat pear-shaped and globular forms, they assumed the horizontal stance that distinguishes them to this day from the vertically-disposed coffee and chocolate pots. This splendid example of bold contour and pleasing detail is an important piece of early eighteenth-century provincial silver. Pentecost Symonds, the maker, worked in Plymouth. He, like a number of West Country makers, had his wares hallmarked at Exeter. An assay office had been established there
in 170l.

Handsome cut-card work, a decorative appliqué cut from sheet, enriches the cover. First appearing in the 1660s and usually of foliate or strap design, the Huguenot makers favored its use. Symonds, in this instance, raised a secondary cover to fit like a cap over the main one. He then pierced it in this formal lattice and husk design of French character. After it had been soldered to the cover, he applied the attenuated
gadroons.

At least three other pear-shaped teapots by Symonds have survived, a plain example of 1712/13, and ones of 1712/13 and 1713/14, both with similar cut-card work of alternate palm leaves and pierced straps on their covers. These indicate a significant provincial production of well-conceived and executed silver teapots at a relatively early date.
InscribedOwners' initials "V/I*E" in block letters engraved on underside of base.
MarkingsBritannia standard. Maker's mark "Sy" in block letters with crown over rosette above within a vertical rectangle with canted corners, triple-towered castle, lion's head erased, Britannia, and date letter on underside of base and on bezel of cover.
ProvenanceChristie, Manson & Woods, London (1946; purchased by the Goldsmiths & Silvermiths Company Ltd., London [presently Garrard & Co. Ltd.]); Garrard & Co., London.

Exhibition(s)