Cups and saucers were one of the staples of the Tucker factory’s production. The present examples, with the evert rims and tight loop handles, we manufactured at a cost of three cents each for the cups and two and a quarter cents for each saucer. They were sold in lots of twelve or twenty-four at a cost of five dollars per dozen. The decoration used patterns that matched other tea service items.  Here, three of the examples carry the so-called Spider decoration, one that seems unique to Tucker and appears without identification in the polychrome pattern book. However, in the 1832 list for burnishing costs, Thomas Tucker divides the wares into two groups, “Banded Teas” and “Phoenix Teas.” The lid of an 1828 Tucker sugar bowl, inscribed on the body “Phoenix Hose Co,” is decorated with the identical distinctive gilt Spider ornament. As the sugar bowl was part of a tea set that was one of the first Tucker commissions, perhaps Thomas Tucker’s term “Phoenix” is a reference to this pattern.

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.