Shaw & Fisher - Teapot - Silverplated

Britannia metal teapot, Shaw & Fisher, Sheffield

This large teapot, measuring 26 x 15 x 16 cm, features a highly bulbous pyriform body with vertical ribs converging, reminiscent of a pumpkin or gourd, depending on the naturalistic ornamental vocabulary that characterizes the Victorian aesthetic of the second half of the 19th century. The body rests on four feet shaped like openwork, foliate scrolls, separately cast and welded to the body, giving it a decorative base that is complex and highly worked in the late Rococo revival taste. The curved S-shaped spout is highlighted by a light ridge, while the handle, also Rococo in profile, is fitted with two insulating bone washers intended to protect the hand from heat. The lid, festooned along the body’s ribs, is hinged and topped with a miniature pumpkin-shaped puller set against a background of acanthus leaves, all in blackened metal. Under the base, stamped with the oval mark “S × F / Shaw & Fisher / Sheffield,” are also the model number 11720 and the figures 31 and 4, which probably refer to a drawing registration number.

Shaw & Fisher originated from a long-standing family that specialized in Britannia-metal objects, an alloy of tin rich in low antimony and copper content, whose trade was developed starting in 1821 by Matthew Shaw’s brother, James Shaw. The company took its final form when James Shaw partnered with his brother-in-law Fisher around 1833. The house’s specialties were tea and coffee services, dishes, and lids, sold throughout England and on the Continent. The brand with the crossed arrows, visible on the base of this piece, was used from 1872, allowing the dating of the piece to the period between 1872 and the firm’s closure in 1894.

Britannia metal is an alloy consisting of 92–97% tin, with small quantities of antimony and copper added, derived from the industrial mechanization developed in Sheffield from the 1760s, and it could be cast, turned, hammered, stamped, and engraved in ways impossible with other metals. Its resemblance to polished silver made it an economical substitute much in demand by Victorian middle classes to equip their tea table with luxuriously appearing objects. The gradual decline in demand from the 1870s, in favor of electroplated silver, contributed to weakening Shaw & Fisher, whose Suffolk Road workshops were too cramped to house electroplating vats, and whose assets were put up for sale in 1894. This teapot thus stands as a representative testimony to Sheffield craftsmanship in affordable metal tableware at the height of the Victorian tea culture.