The coffeepot is among the largest and most complex domestic forms the American pewterer fashioned. While eighteenth-century manuscripts occasionally refer to them, only a few examples—all associated with William Will—are known. Their scarcity implies that few shops possessed the costly molds required to produce the vessel. By the early nineteenth century, with the invention of Britannia and the attendant new production methods, more American craftsmen began to manufacture coffeepots. Israel Trask’s vessels are distinctive for their design and construction.

Technical notes: Trask and other Beverly craftsmen, including Ebenezer Smith, Jr., and the partnership of Lee and Creesy, constructed their coffeepots from rolled and seamed sheet metal. A six-inch plate was set in for the bottom of the Bayou Bend example. A three-part hinge is attached to the lid, and its finial is riveted. Although the object is referred to as a coffeepot, its spout has a strainer such as one would find on a teapot.

Related examples: Garrett et al. 1985, p. 147, no. 160. Trask adapted this design for flagons, in Watts 1968, pp. 45–46, nos. 117, 119.

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.