Teapot

Description

The ball-shaped, or globular, teapot form was typical among early ceramic teapots imported from China and England, and by 1730 was seen in silver teapots made in New York. This pewter teapot, however, is one of only a few known of this era with a globular body form. Another teapot in a private collection is nearly identical in body and lid size and detail, but it has a different spout and handle. Mystifyingly, both teapots are unmarked. It has been suggested that Winterthur's teapot was created by pewterer John Bassett (1696-1761); an attribution made when it and a porringer marked by John Bassett were discovered in a barn in New Jersey in the 1940s. While not impossible, no known works marked by John Bassett or his sons (also pewterers, and inheritors of his casting molds) appear to have been made with elements cast from the molds used for this teapot. The teapot’s only ornament is the petal-shaped finial on top of its low, domed lid, an unusual finial for teapots but not without precedent