Small, rare and special, this little coffee pot stands 13.5 cm tall and weighs 216 grams.  Hallmarked for Paris for the period 1798-1809, the pot is Britannia standard silver (958.33/1000). Antoine Balzarini had his atelier at 167 rue St Honore, Paris.  It is hallmarked under the base and again inside the hinged lid. The period of the hallmarks spans the very tail end of the Directoire, then the Consulat, and then the first years of the reign of the Emperor Napoleon: a somewhat frantic time politically, but one in which stability and safety were reinstated after the horrors of the Revolution and the Terror. Its small size reminds us what a costly luxury coffee was. It was a stimulating and delicious taste of the exotic and mysterious Orient far to the East.

See image of Boucher's 1739 "Morning Coffee" which hangs in the Louvre.

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