Boulton & Fothergill, 1769
1996M1

This silver coffee pot is a fine example of neo-classical design. Known to Boulton’s contemporaries as the ‘antique manner’, it was based on ancient Roman and Greek architectural and decorative forms and became fashionable from around the 1760s.

The design of the coffee pot incorporates numerous neo-classical decorative motifs. The tripod stand is supported on three sphinx figures and is decorated with vitruvian scroll and anthemion bands at the top and guilloche (intertwined bands) at the base. The pot is decorated with masks and swags, with acanthus leaves forming the handle and spout and anethemion decoration on the lid.

Many of these decorative motifs appear on other silver, Sheffield plate and ormolu products made at Soho.

The coffee pot is one of very few pieces of known Boulton silver to bear the Chester Assay Office mark. The expense and risk in transporting finished pieces of silverware from Birmingham to Chester led to Boulton vowing never to go into large-scale production unless Birmingham was granted its own Assay Office.

After a two year campaign spearheaded by Boulton the Birmingham Assay Office opened in 1773. The setting up of the Assay Office was a vital factor in the expansion of the jewellery and silver trades in Birmingham, still the main centre of gold jewellery production in Britain.