Johnson's Household

Photograph

John Parker and Edward Wakelin. Silver Teapot. [ca. 1765]. *2003JM-63

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Samuel Johnson. Deed for Silver Teapot. Dec. 6, 1784. Manuscript. MS Hyde 50 (17)

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A Johnsonian Teaparty at “Oak Knoll,” December 11, 1932. Photograph. *2003JM-63

Johnson's devotion to the drinking of tea makes this teapot one of the most evocative of his household possessions. As shown by the accompanying manuscript deed, dated one week before Johnson's death, the teapot was bequeathed to Frank Barber. Instead, Johnson's executor, Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789), appears to have sold it, even as Johnson's body was being autopsied. According to the inscription on the teapot,

It was weighed out for sale, under the Inspection of Sr. Jno. Hawkins, at the very Minute when they were in the next Room closing the incision through which Mr. Cruikshank had explored the ruinated Machinery of its dead Master's Thorax – so Bray (the Silversmith conveyed there in Sr. John's Carriage thus hastily! to buy the Plate) informed its present Possessor Henry Constantine Nowell by whom it was for its celebrated Services, on the 1st of Novr. 1788 rescued from the undiscriminating Obliterations of the Furnace.
The teapot was purchased in 1927 by the great collector A. Edward Newton, who offered a few favored guests a Johnsonian communion of sorts by serving tea from it at his home, known as Oak Knoll.