Coffee-pot and cover, earthenware, thrown, pale bluish glaze. Earthenware, Height: 17 centimetres (with lid), Width: 18 centimetres (max width - spout to handle), Depth: 12 centimetres (front to back). England, 1820-1840. ©The Trustees of the British Museum.
The coffee pot is transfer-printed in black enamel on each side, depicting a Black man in a natural landscape, accompanied by a verse, and on the other side, a Black woman with a similar background. The text appears to be part of the Jamaican Creole song “Quaco Sam.” Quaco is an African day name for a male child born on a Wednesday; its female counterpart is Cubba, who is mentioned in the verse as Quaco Sam’s cousin and is likely represented by the female image on the pot. Language scholar Barbara Lalla has dated the origins of the song between 1814 and 1823, before the names Quaco and Cubba became pejorative in the mid nineteenth century, when they became synonymous with abuse, stupidity, and immorality, eventually falling into disuse. The song also references the Berry Hill sugar plantation in St. Mary, Jamaica, which had between 74 and 112 enslaved people between 1815 and 1832.
This pot and other ceramics (such as the saucer plates that follow) were commissioned by Mrs. Rebecca Brandon, who continued her husband Manasseh Brandon’s merchant business in Kingston after his death in 1838. She had the ceramics manufactured in England to be sold in her Jamaican shop. The use of transfer-printing was a cost-efficient production method that helped spread and increase the availability of this type of imagery.
According to the British Museum, the strainer with large holes, integrated into the pot, was a feature used for drinking toast-water in the early 19th century. This practice involved pouring boiling water onto toast, letting it stand, and then straining off the liquid, which was consumed for medicinal purposes as a way of providing nutrients to invalids.
Inscription in the bottom of the Coffee Pot.