Wastell Pot, 1720–21
Some of the more notable of the coffee-house-keepers' tokens in the Guildhall Museum were photographed for this work. They are described and illustrated in chapter X.
There are illustrated other silver coffee pots in the Victoria and Albert Museum, by Folkingham (1715–16), and by Wastell (1720–21), the latter pot being octagonal.
There is illustrated also a design in tiles that were let into the wall of an ancient coffee house in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, known as the "Dish of Coffee Boy" in the catalog of the collection of London antiquities in the Guildhall Museum. Mr. Ellis thinks this belongs to a period a little earlier, but certainly not later, than 1692; the coffee pot represented being exactly of the lantern shape. It is an oblong sign of glazed Delft tiles, decorated in blue, brown, and yellow, representing a youth pouring coffee. Upon a table, by his side, are a gazette, two pipes, a bowl, a bottle, and a mug; above, on a scroll, is, "dish of coffee boy."
"Dish of Coffee Boy" Design in Delft Tiles 1692
Modifications of the lantern began to appear with great rapidity in England. In the coffee pot of Chinese porcelain, illustrated, probably made in China from an English model a few years later than the 1692 pot, Mr. Ellis observes that "the spout has already lost its straightness, the extreme taper of the body is diminished, and the lid betrays the first tendency to depart from the straightness of the cone to the curved outline of the dome." He adds:
These variations rapidly intensified, and at the commencement of the eighteenth century we find the body still less tapering and the lid has become a perfect dome. As we approach the end of Queen Anne's reign the thumb piece disappears and the handle is no longer set on at right angles to the spout. Through the reign of George I but little modification took place, save that the taper of the body became less and less. In the Second George's time we find the taper has almost entirely disappeared, so that the sides are nearly parallel, while the dome of the lid has been flattened down to a very low elevation above the rim. In the second quarter of the eighteenth century the pear shaped coffee pot was the vogue. In the earlier years of George III, when many new and beautiful designs in silversmiths' work were created, a complete revolution in coffee-pots takes place, and the flowing outlines of the new pattern recall the form of the Turkish ewer, which had been discarded nearly one hundred years previously.