Coffeepot 1755 - 1765

Curator: This elegantly shaped porcelain coffeepot, created sometime between 1755 and 1765, comes to us from the Ansbach Pottery and Porcelain Manufactory. It's a delicate example of Rococo craftsmanship. Editor: It looks surprisingly understated, almost ghostlike. All white, with these little floral decorations that look more like fossils than ornamentation. I’m immediately drawn to its stillness. Curator: Rococo, even in its more restrained expressions, still carried certain symbolical cues. Flowers often suggested youth, ephemeral beauty, even transience, which for a drinking vessel... makes one contemplate the fleeting nature of that first sip of coffee! Editor: That's wonderfully morbid for a Monday morning. I can see it; that fleeting beauty reflected in something as mundane as morning coffee. Although, what's going on at the spout there? Is that... a face? Curator: Precisely. Note the small, sculpted face emerging from the coffeepot's spout—a symbol of awakening, a visual invocation of the new day promised within each pour. Rococo loved those clever little visual surprises embedded within utilitarian forms. Editor: It's quite subtle! It’s almost hidden, yet contributes so much to the feeling that the object has a spirit or personality. Porcelain gives the design a nice smooth and consistent look. Curator: White porcelain also, during this period, gained popularity through the influx of Eastern trade. Its purity connoted cleanliness, new beginnings, but also access to exotic goods – to display it was to show you had taste and access. It’s interesting, don’t you think, how even everyday objects once carried the weight of these social meanings? Editor: Absolutely, even a simple coffeepot tells such a detailed story of trade, culture, and society, even psychology. Next time I need an historical overview, maybe I’ll just get myself some antique kitchenware. Curator: You never know where you'll find cultural memory lurking! Thank you. Editor: Likewise, always a pleasure.