Gallery Title
Gallery Title
London silver tea kettle
Accession Number NWHCM : 1937.164.6
Description
London silver tea kettle; bulbous body with plain footrim, bands of reeding above the spout and on the neck; the spout with fluted and bead decoration and with a hinged cover; stepped dome lid with a turned knob and reeding around the rim; the handle arms plain with trefid finials and a baluster handle between them; on the lid a crest of a bucks head couped; kettle made 1694-1695, the handle and lid 1851
Read MoreLondon silver tea kettle
This is the earliest known English silver tea-kettle, marked 1694-5. It is engraved with the coat-of-arms of the Norfolk Buxton family, although made in London. Possessing such a tea-kettle at this early date implied considerable means if the owner could afford to drink tea regularly – the coat-of-arms suggests the esteem in which such an object was held.
Tea was a new luxury commodity in the seventeenth century, an important component of the East India Company’s trade with China. Until the mid eighteenth century it was taxed so highly it was out of reach of all but the wealthiest, and was often smuggled. To serve tea at home was a sign of status, and it demanded correspondingly lavish utensils, including a silver kettle, like this one, teamed with a teapot and tea-bowls of equally expensive Chinese porcelain.