Images(5)

Coffee cup

Date1725-1745

OriginEngland, Staffordshire

MediumWhite salt-glazed stoneware

DimensionsOH: 3 1/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Wesley and Elise H. Wright in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Clay Hofheimer II and in honor of John C. Austin

Object number2008-52

DescriptionInverted bell-shaped coffee cup or Capuchine with handle and foot ring. A raised mid-band or molding adorns the cup at the point where the handle terminates.Label TextAlthough simple white stoneware coffee cups, waste bowls, and tea canisters are less common survivals today, nonetheless they are well-documented in the buried record. Capuchines, or inverted bell-shaped coffee cups both with and without handles, have been excavated in Virginia from the ruins of Corotoman, the principal seat of Robert “King” Carter on the Rappahannock River, which burned in 1729, and from Rosewell in Gloucester County, Virginia. Additional examples were found in Williamsburg at the Hay site and at Wetherburn’s Tavern. The form is present in New England, too, with fragments of one such specimen recovered in a 1978 excavation at the Frary House, Deerfield, Massachusetts.