Description:
English tall, pear-shaped black basalt coffeepot with a domed cover, attached s-curving spout, and broad, circular foot, and ear-shaped handle. The molded lid is topped with finial of a woman holding a; the lid and pot are decorated with engine turning in a fluted design, with a two-tiered fluted design on the pot sides. A hard black earthenware made of black-stained clay that was stained throughout with manganese and iron (known then as "Egyptian black") was being made in Staffordshire by about the mid 18th century, but was perfected by Josiah Wedgwood about 1768 and marketed to great success as ornamental and tablewares. In a letter to his partner, Thomas Bentley, Wedgwood hoped that the fashion for white hands and black teapots would continue. Although many English potters made black basalt, there was less interest in America: George Washington owned a black basalt coffeepot; some basalt was found in the wreck of the DeBraak in the Delaware River; and a few other fragments have been found at archaeological sites.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+91.078 |
