Coffee pot c. 1710 - 1715

Curator: Good morning! Today, we're looking at a "Coffee Pot" crafted around 1710 to 1715 by the skilled hands of Edward Yorke. It resides here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Editor: My first thought is that it seems impossibly elegant for mere coffee! I imagine it gracing a table during some serious 18th-century power negotiations. Is it silver? Curator: Precisely! Yorke fashioned it primarily from silver, embracing the Baroque style's love of embellishment. You also see the lovely wooden handle—quite a contrast to the metal body. Coffee had become rather fashionable then, symbolizing prosperity and refinement. Editor: Oh, definitely seeing that status play out through material culture! Thinking about this object's symbolism in history, I am wondering: Would it feel out of place in, say, a contemporary setting? Curator: Well, that's a great question, especially as Yorke, a prominent London silversmith, no doubt designed it with aristocratic clientele in mind. In terms of how its visual style creates and evokes memory, the coffee pot is shaped for both aesthetic and ritual performance—part of its enduring appeal, perhaps. Editor: It does have such an undeniably classic form. Yet, you see coffee culture all the time now! To me, a high-status coffee pot is something funny to reflect on: We can take simple, everyday acts and elevate their role by associating them with prestige. It has a comedic effect of amplifying their original significance! Curator: Yes, there's an amusing irony, isn't there? Then and now! Coffee, and the objects associated, really did become symbols of social standing. The handle is something nice to meditate on, considering that coffee and the ritual associated were thought to be only enjoyed with the absence of manual labor or 'handling'! Editor: That dark wooden handle... a tactile reminder of class, labor and luxury. It sort of jars me now; I'd want it made of something else. Okay, new project idea: a redesigned democratic coffee pot. Curator: A fitting intervention, indeed! Yorke's piece makes one reconsider just how our rituals embed themselves into our societies. Editor: Makes you want to rethink your morning coffee a bit.