Coffee was an exotic Turkish beverage introduced to Europe in the 1630s. First used as a curative, it soon became a popular social drink. Boston’s town minutes for 1670–71 grant permission for “a house of publique Entertainment for the sellinge of Coffee & Chuchaletto [chocolate].”  However, some time would pass before coffee attained a status deeming it suitable for domestic gatherings. The earliest coffeepots have tall, cylindrical, upward-tapering bodies, with rounded or polygonal cast spouts and domed lids.  Later, the form began to assume a pear shape, its lid slightly domed, and its spout adorned with ornament. With its Rococo engraving, the Bayou Bend coffeepot is a composite of these two types.

Technical notes: The body and lid are raised. The side is cut out in an oval for the spout. Both handle sockets are attached to disks mounted at the handle juncture. The wooden handle is pinned through the top socket but not the bottom. The finial is riveted.

Related examples: The only other Nathaniel Hurd coffeepot is published in Antiques 102 (December 1972), p. 966. The Bayou Bend pot also closely relates to two other examples, the earlier marked by Jacob Hurd (Quimby 1995, pp. 122–24, no. 79), the second by his former apprentice and son-in-law, Daniel Henchman (Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. 1, pp. 172–74, no. 221).

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.