Artist/Maker Jacques-Nicolas Roettiers (1736 - 1788)

Coffeepot

1775-1776

Place madeParis, France, Europe

Silver

Overall: 9 3/8 × 5 3/8 × 6 1/4 in. (23.8 × 13.7 × 15.9 cm)
Overall (weight, with handle): 50 oz (troy) 3.7 dwt (1560.9 g)

Gift of Goodhue Livingston

1951.284

This coffeepot was purchased by Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816), the United States Minister to France, who resided in Paris during the French Revolution. While in Paris from 1792 to 1794, Morris witnessed the fall of the French monarchy and, with it, the revolutionary government's sales of the personal effects of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Morris may have purchased this coffeepot from a French aristocrat and royal sympathizer in need of ready cash to flee the country. He later sold the coffeepot to Robert R. Livingston (1746-1813), who assumed the same position in 1801. As United States Minister to France, Morris explained, Livingston would need a proper dinner service for use at official events. Morris wrote to him: "You cannot handsomely do without one." This piece was engraved with the Livingston family crest: a sailing ship with the motto “Spero Meliora.”

DescriptionLouis XV coffee pot; raised pear-shaped body on three cast scroll feet with applied acanthus leaves on legs with shield-shaped joints of horizontal bands surrounded by foliate garlands, shells, and leaves; rim trimmed with molded bands; circular, hinged, domed lid has rim of applied, cast, reeded bundles wrapped with bands; cast foliate medallion and foliate finial applied at the center of lid; scroll and acanthus lid and body joined by thumbpiece located above the cylinder hinge and decorated with foliate swagged plate with leaf drop; applied, cast spout with a swag, garland, and shell motif, a shield and foliate drop below, and notched lip above; cylindrical handle-socket framed with a reeded bundle wrapped in bands around outer edge, and with circular joint surrounded by a foliate band; straight, turned, wooden handle (replacement); center of the body engraved with Livingston family arms surmounted by crest of a three-masted ship; banner below inscribed with motto "SPERO MELIORA" in roman letters; maker's marks struck on undersides of lid and body.

MarkingsMark: stamped on underside of lid and bottom of body: "A" crowned (Paris charge mark from 1774-1780 period), "M" crowned with conforming surround (Paris town mark of 1775), and "J N/ R" below a trefoil and crown (le poincon de maitre).

InscribedEngraved at center-front: Livingston family arms of quartered shield with three gilly flowers within a tressure flory at quarters 1 and 4, counter flory, 2 quartered with three gilly flowers in a chevron in 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 three crescents, 3 a bend between six billets, surrounded by a garland and surmounted by a ship of three masts, with a banner below inscribed, "SPERO MELIORA" in roman letters.

ProvenanceRobert R. Livingston (1748-1813), who married Mary Stevens (1752-1814); to their daughter Margaret Maria Livingston (1783-1818), who married Robert L. Livingston (1775-1843); to their son Eugene Augustus Livingston (1813-1893), who married (2nd) Elizabeth Rhodes Fisher (1828-1878); to their son Richard Montgomery Callender Livingston (1861-1945); to his cousin Goodhue Livingston (1867-1951), the donor.

ClassificationsSILVER