Artist/Maker Peter & Ann Bateman (active 1791 - 1800)

Teapot

1792-1793

Place madeLondon, England, Europe

Silver

Overall: 3 7/8 × 6 5/8 × 11 1/8 in., 15 oz (troy) 11.9 dwt (9.8 × 16.8 × 28.3 cm, 485 g)

Gift of Wilmot T. Cox

1941.902

This teapot is made from sheet silver, which was created by flatting or rolling machines that were available to English silversmiths by the 1750s. Sheet silver enabled firms to bypass the traditional, pain staking hammering process that produced the basic discs from which silver vessels were raised. Vessels made from sheet silver were cheaper and faster to manufacture and lent themselves to the geometric silhouettes that distinguish Neoclassical hollowware. English imports, such as this teapot, were regularly sold by silversmiths and jewelers in New York and in other American cities. This piece became a treasured heirloom in the family of Mary Ann Bowers Duane, who married James C. Duane in 1792. Duane was the son of former New York City mayor James Duane (1736-1797), a member of the Continental Congress, and the first mayor of New York City after the American Revolution.

DescriptionSeamed silver teapot; oval body with fluted sides that come to points at each end, seamed beneath the handle; bands of bright-cut foliate decoration at the base and below the shoulder; bright-cut oval and foliate motifs on the raised, flat sections of the fluting, except in the center, where chamfered rectangular reserves hung from bows are engraved; the reserve right of the handle is engraved, "M M D/ 1791" in bright-cut script and block numbers; applied, concave shoulder with bands of wheel-turned decoration along the edges; applied, cast reeded rim; hinged, domed oval lid with bright-cut and wheel turned bands around the edge; cast urn finial screwed through the center of the dome; straight, tapered paneled straight spout joined at the base with bright-cut floral motifs on each side of the lip; two tapered octagonal handle-sockets fitted with a wooden c-scroll handle; makers' marks stamped on the base and along underside of lid.

Markingsstamped: on the base: a lion passant in a chamfered rectangle, a bust of a man in an oval, a crowned leopard's head in a shield, "r" in a chamfered rectangle, all around "PB/ AB" in a rectangle engraved: in the reserve: "M M/ 1791" in bright-cut script and block numbers

ClassificationsSILVER