Thomas Fletcher Antique Coin Silver Coffee Pot, Philadelphia, PA, c. 1830

This wonderful classical coffee pot features a lovely cast finial of a blooming acanthus flower. Along the outer dome of the lid is a repoussé design of a grapevine with detailed bunches of grapes and leaves, hand engraved for detail. This hand work matches the large, dramatic cast and applied banding around the upper body. A beautiful acanthus leaf thumb-piece decorates the striking 'c'-scroll handle, while the spout emerges from acanthus leaves on the other side.

Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner ran the most important silversmithy of the young republic, receiving commissions to make the most significant presentation silver of their day, including: The DeWitt Clinton Urns (Erie Canal, now at the Met), The George Armistead Punch Service (Commander at Fort McHenry, now at the Smithsonian), The Isaac Hull Urn (Commander of the Constitution, now in the Naval Historical Foundation's collection), etc.

As Stuart Feld notes in Boston in the Age of Neo-Classicism, "No silversmith working in America during the late Federal period exceeded either the ambition or the quality of the Philadelphia partnership of Thomas Fletcher and Sydney Gardiner…"(p.77). Fletcher & Gardiner looked to both French and English design sources for their silver and combined the two into an aesthetic that was uniquely American and entirely their own.

This stately coffee pot is marked underneath 'T. FLETCHER/ PHILAD'. It measures 11.75 inches high by 12.5 across the handle and spout, weighs an impressive 52.40 troy ounces and is in very good condition.