The Rococo’s earliest American manifestation occurs in silver dating from the mid-1740s, approximately a decade before the publication of Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director. This teapot is the most fully developed expression of the style in the museum’s silver collection. The earlier form has evolved into an inverted pear shape despite the fact that this configuration was less efficient for brewing tea. In Philadelphia, Joseph Richardson’s letters and accounts, as well as his surviving silver, provide insights into the integration of the Rococo style into Philadelphia, colonial America’s principal style center.

Technical notes: The foot, body, and lid are all raised. A ruffle is engraved around the upper handle socket. The handle is a replacement. The lid is vented and its finial riveted. 

Related examples:  Most closely related is Fales 1974b, p. 86, fig. 42.

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.