At the height of the tea trade, a curious arrangement flourished: English workshops, the best in the world at silver-plated wares, made pieces for fashionable retailers in Paris, who stamped them with their own names and a Paris address. This little teapot declares the whole story on its base — Linton, Paris, fabriqué en Angleterre: made in England, sold in Paris. It is a bachelor teapot, sized to brew for one, the kind kept at hand for a solitary afternoon rather than the full ceremony of the table.
The pot is silver-plated metal, its round body worked over the whole surface with hammered texture, rising to a ruffled, petal-form gallery around the lid, which is crowned with a ball finial; a slender curved spout and a scrolled loop handle complete it. Run your eye across the hammering — the marks vary in depth and length rather than repeating, the difference between a surface planished by hand at the bench and a texture pressed in by machine. The base is stamped by the retailer H.J. Linton of Paris, with the marks partly softened by age but legible, alongside a scratched inventory number.
The plating has mellowed unevenly, with tarnish and wear through to warm copper tones on the spout, foot, and underside — a surface that shows every year of service, exactly as the photographs present it. Whoever poured their tea from this pot before you kept it in use, not in a cabinet. It is at home on open kitchen shelving, a tea tray, or a collector's cabinet.
The pot carries its retailer's stamp on the base, photographed plainly. It arrives professionally packed and fully insured — we handle the paperwork and worldwide shipping, with all import duties paid by us, so there is nothing to settle on delivery. Returns are accepted within 30 days.
DETAILS:
Height: approx. 12 cm (4.7 in) — roughly the height of a teacup, sized for one
Silver-plated metal, hand-hammered body; stamped H.J. Linton, Paris, Fabriqué en Angleterre, to base
Condition: worn condition consistent with long use; tarnish and plating wear to copper on spout, foot, and underside; body sound
