DUTCH SILVER BACHELOR TEAPOT

A Dutch silver bachelor teapot

Attributed to Jaques Chevalier jr. (Voet 76)

The Hague, 1718

305 grams all in; 11.9 cm high

The pear-shaped teapot on circular stand ring base is fluted into lobate panels, body and detachable cover. The teapot has a c-scroll wood handle and a reeded knob finial. The underside displays an engraved letter M. Fully marked on the underside and displaying an assay stripe. Also struck with a control mark of 1795 for The Hague.

The silversmith

Maker’s mark ’ a horse heading forward in a circle’ is attributed to Jaques Chevalier jr. Cheval is the French word for horse. Elias Voet has recorded this maker’s mark, which he discovered on several silver objects from 1709-1722. At that time he could not provide a name for this maker’s mark. He mentions, however, Jaques Chevalier jr. as a silversmith (Oathbook 2 March 1711), probably the son of Jaques Chevalier, who in 1699 married Jacoba Stolkin jd. Van de Paltz. Jaques Chevalier jr. died on 15 January 1729.

This is a rather early example of a silver bachelor teapot, made in The Hague. The earliest known silver bachelor teapots were made by Adam Loofs. They all are in similar sizes. This bachelor teapot by Chevalier, however, is not plain, but lobate, which was extraordinary at that time. Little is known about Jacques Chevalier’s entire oeuvre, probably because his maker’s mark was not recorded by E. Voet. The objects attributed are a.o. a silver two-bottled cruet stand from 1707, two candlesticks from 1709, which are now in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, a coffee pot (1709), a candlestick (1711), a caster (1713), a snuffer (1717), a soap box with the coat-of-arms of the Van Steelandt family (1720) offering plates with shaped borders (1722), a communion plate with altar cruets (1727).

Tea culture in the Netherlands

Due to merchants of the East India Company (VOC), who came across tea ceremonies in China and Japan, tea was introduced in the Netherlands. They saw potential in this commodity and started transporting large quantities to Amsterdam, where it was stored in canal houses and then auctioned at high prices. Therefore, tea used to be an exclusive drink for the higher classes. Initially, tea was considered to be a medicinal beverage, which was promoted by doctors like Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek, Boerhave, Tulp and Bontekoe. Tea would purify the blood, stimulate the mind and thus enrich the East India Company stakeholders. At the end of the seventeenth century tea was still a luxury product, drunk by wealthy ladies, who organised tea parties. In the beginning of the eighteenth century the popularity of tea increased. A special room in the house and even outside the house was furnished with a tea table and all the necessary accessories. Still standing tea domes at the river Vecht are relics of our tea drinking past. The accessories consisted of precious porcelain and silver items, which stressed the high status of tea.

Silversmiths were commissioned to make small silver pots and large silver water kettles with burners on stands (bouilloires). Hot water from the latter ones was poured into the small silver pots, containing the tea. Furthermore, tea caddies (with locks) and tea chests with two or three silver caddies were ordered, for several tea blends.