After a hiatus in his silversmithing business during the Revolution, Paul Revere returned to his craft about 1780. Soon his shop began producing silver in the newest taste, using the latest technology. This fluted teapot, for example, is probably based on similar English works in silver, fused plate (also called Sheffield plate), or ceramic wares, and it is made of rolled sheet silver. Bending sheets of thin silver, produced in rolling mills, into a desired form and soldering them together took less time and effort than the traditional, more laborious method of raising a vessel from an ingot with repeated hammer blows. Here, Revere decorated the teapot with dotted and bright-cut bands over tasseled festoons at top and bottom, all in the latest Neoclassical style.

Revere entered a charge for this teapot in his account book on June 18, 1796, noting its sale to Jonathan Hunnewell, a mason and distinguished citizen of Boston. As was common, the intrinsic value of the silver (at 7 shillings per ounce for a total value of £7.1.0) was roughly equivalent to the price Revere charged for making and engraving the vessel (£7.10.0), bringing the total cost to £14.11.0. Hunnewell also ordered a stand for the teapot and a sugar basket, twelve teaspoons, sugar tongs, and four salt shovels.

Hunnewell and Revere were friends. Each was an active member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Society, a mutual aid organization founded in 1795; Revere was the first president and Hunnewell the second.

This text was adapted from Ward, et al., MFA Highlights: American Decorative Arts & Sculpture (Boston, 2006) available at www.mfashop.com/mfa-publications.html.

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