The Western custom of serving cream with tea became customary by the beginning of the eighteenth century, although the earliest American silver cream pots date from the second quarter of the century. Patterned after the can, they were composed of a pear-shaped body; molded foot; small, triangular spout; cast, scrolled handle; and, at times, a hinged, domed lid. The Bayou Bend example, with its cabriole legs and outward flaring spout, represents the subsequent phase in the vessel's evolution. Hurd’s chased and engraved cream pots are unique in American silver. Their ornament was possibly inspired by contemporary Irish silver, but a more plausible interpretation is that it evolved in response to the deteriorating relations between France, England, and her American colonies at mid-century.

Technical notes: The body is raised, and the feet and handle cast. The spout is soldered on rather than integral with the raised body, a construction technique characteristic of early Boston cream pots.

Related examples:  Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. 1, pp. 127–29, nos. 149, 150; Johnston 1994, p. 80.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff.  American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.