Early Scottish silver teawares

Magazine Antiques, June, 1996 by John A. Hyman

The silver trade was centered in Edinburgh, the economic, religious, legal, social, and cultural center of Scotland. Life in the city was bound up in its geography, which in turn influenced its architecture. Medieval Edinburgh was built along a single, mile-long street on the spine of a steep ridge [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. The High Street, as it was named, was lined with tenements that housed every sector of society. The one person most likely to be able to afford silver; the laird, rented four or five rooms on a single floor close to street level when he came to the city for the winter social and political season. His servants lived in the kitchen; the parlor doubled as the dining room; his wife entertained in her bedroom, which she often shared with one or more children. A merchant might occupy an upper floor of the same tenement; a widow might take three rooms; and a tailor might live in the garret, lit by a single window. All shared a common stair and other facilities, and privacy was almost non-existent.

Under these circumstances, ostentation would have been incongruous. Apartments lacked the formal, special-purpose rooms found in England, which is one reason why there are no known Scottish paintings of a family at tea. Men had their portraits painted in London, where they went to seek their political or economic fortunes, but there are no extant conversation pieces because their families remained behind. In these circumstances it is small wonder that purchases of silver teawares were often limited to a teapot, augmented by ceramic bowls, jugs, and cups, with the expectation of adding other silver objects later. As a result, there are no matched Scottish tea services until after 1730.(2)

During the early period of Scottish silver teawares, makers briefly experimented with teapots shaped like the one shown in Plate II. Despite its elegant silver handle, this shape was discarded, probably because it was so simple and unpretentious. The classic Scottish teapot is instantly recognizable - a spherical body rising high on a stepped pedestal and having a silver handle (see Pl. III). Equally distinctive milk jugs could be spherical or baluster shaped, and sugar bowls and teapot stands were spherical with a shaped, everted rim. However, in the modern sense, the teawares shown in Plate III do not match, since they were not made by the same silversmith in the same year.

Scottish teawares are more tautly shaped and considerably larger than their English counterparts. They exemplify the sure-handed work of the closely knit group of silversmiths who worked in a row of shops known as the Luckenbooths in the center of Edinburgh, opposite Parliament Square and near Saint Giles Cathedral. Silversmiths such as Alexander Reid, James Ker, Colin McKenzie, William Aytoun, James Sympsons, and Mungo Yorstoun were the equals of all but a few of their London contemporaries.

Teapots, milk jugs, and sugar bowls resemble each other whether made in Edinburgh or in the provincial centers of Aberdeen, Banff, Perth, Tain, Glasgow, Inverness, Dumfries, Dundee, Elgin, or Montrose. The only assay office, however, was in Edinburgh,(3) so silversmiths in other cities marked their wares with their version of the town name or mark: for example, "ABD" for Aberdeen and a pot of lilies for Dundee were accepted as denoting quality.

The teapot and milk jug shown in Plate IV are probably the earliest surviving matching Scottish silver teawares. Their maker, Henry Bethune of Edinburgh, seems to have specialized in this shape. He is credited with a half-dozen surviving teapots, but this is his only known milk jug.(4) Based on the weight scratched on the bottom of the teapot, both it and the milk jug were originally fitted with silver handles - a Scottish feature. Both may once have been plain, the decoration being applied in the 1730s, when the Scots added their own type of foliate chasing (often in the shape of a bib) to all sorts of objects.

The assembled tea set by three makers shown in Plate V typifies Scottish practice.(5) The teapot was purchased first, followed by the sugar bowl, and finally the cream boat, as money became available. The cream boat form first appeared about 1740, replacing beth baluster and spherical milk jugs. It is possible that the cream boat doubled as a sauceboat, since Scottish cream boats are as large as some English sauceboats.

Chased decoration was the only sign of changing fashion in Scottish silver teawares, which otherwise remained the same in shape and profile, although the molded edge along the rim was eliminated to provide a broader surface for chasing. Scottish silversmiths did, however, occasionally manage to shake off the fetters of design conformity to create forms of unexpected sophistication and energy. Among these is the hot-water urn, which precedes its English counterpart by two decades, during which period the English continued to favor a kettle-on-stand. Conventional urns rise from a solid base in a comfortable geometry, with the body the most substantial and visible element. The prototypical Scottish urn violates this convention, with spidery legs rising much of the way up the body and encircling it, overlapping sea-serpent handles. Scottish urns owe their singularity to the fact that the diminutive egg-shaped body is not dominant but merely one element among several, perched within a complex frame. The urn shown in Plate VII is particularly splendid. Of the fourteen known surviving Scottish hot-water urns of this singular shape, only one or two others are so exquisitely chased. The sophisticated band of flowing foliage, shells, and diaperwork far surpasses conventional Scottish chasing in refinement and technique.(6) It is so delicate it could be mistaken for engraving. The surviving urns span nearly five decades (1719/20-1767/68) and are credited to eleven makers.