ine art.

Madame de Pompadour's inventory disclosed a "gold coffee mill, carved in
colored gold to represent the branches of a coffee tree." The art of
gold, which sought to embellish everything, did not disdain these homely
utensils; and one may see at the Cluny Museum in Paris, among many mills
of graceful form, a coffee mill of engraved iron dating from the
eighteenth century, upon which are represented the four seasons. We are
told, however, that it graced the "sale after the death of Mme. de
Pompadour", which, of course, makes it much more valuable.

[Illustration: ITALIAN WROUGHT-IRON COFFEE ROASTER

Courtesy of _Edison Monthly_]

"The tea pot, coffee pot and chocolate pot first used in England closely
resembled each other in form", says Charles James Jackson in his
_Illustrated History of English Plate_, "each being circular in plan,
tapering towards the top, and having its handle fixed at a right angle
with the spout."

[Illustration: Tea Pot, 1670

Coffee Pot, 1681

Coffee Pot, 1689

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY TEA POTS AND COFFEE POTS]

He says further:

The earliest examples were of oriental ware and the form of these
was adopted by the English plate workers as a model for others of
silver. It apparently was not until after both tea and coffee had
been used for several years in this country [England] that the tea
pot was made proportionately less in height and greater in diameter
than the coffee pot. This distinction, which was probably due to
copying the forms of Chinese porcelain tea pots, was afterwards
maintained, and to the present day the difference between the tea
pot and the coffee pot continued to be mainly one of height.

The coffee pot illustrated (1681) formerly belonged to the East India
Company, and is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is
almost identical with a tea pot (1670) in the same museum, except that
its straight spout is fixed nearer to the base, as is its
leather-covered handle, which, with the sockets into which it fits,
forms a long recurving scroll fixed opposite to and in line with the
spout. Its cover, which is hinged to the upper handle socket, is high
like that of the 1670 tea-pot; but instead of the straight outline of
that cover, this is slightly waved and surmounted by a somewhat flat
button-shaped knob. Engraved on the body is a shield of arms, a chevron
between three crosses fleury, surrounded by tied feathers