All About Coffee Part 115

Peele's Coffee-house, Nos. 177 and 178, Fleet-street, east corner of Fetter-lane, was one of the coffee-houses of the Johnsonian period; and here was long preserved a portrait of Dr. Johnson, on the keystone of a chimney-piece, stated to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Peele's was noted for files of newspapers from these dates: _Gazette_, 1759; _Times_, 1780; _Morning Chronicle_, 1773; _Morning Post_, 1773; _Morning Herald_, 1784; _Morning Advertiser_, 1794; and the evening papers from their commencement.

The house is now a tavern.

_Coffee Literature and Ideals_

The bibliography at the end of this work will serve to indicate the nature and extent of the general literature of coffee. Not that it is complete or nearly so; it would require twice the s.p.a.ce to include mention of all the fugitive bits of verse, essays, and miscellaneous writings in newspapers, and periodicals, dealing with the poetry and romance, history, chemistry, and physiological effects of coffee. Only the early works, and the more notable contributions of the last three centuries, are included in the bibliography; but there is sufficient to enable the student to a.n.a.lyze the lines of general progress.

A study of the literature of coffee shows that the French really internationalized the beverage. The English and Italians followed. With the advent of the newspaper press, coffee literature began to suffer from its compet.i.tion.

The complexities of modern life suggest that coffee drinking in perfection, the esthetics, and a new literature of coffee may once more become the pleasure of a small caste. Are the real pleasures of life, the things truly worth while, only to the swift--the most efficient? Who shall say? Are not some of us, particularly in America, rather p.r.o.ne to glorify the gospel of work to such an extent that we are in danger of losing the ability to understand or to enjoy anything else?

Granted that this is so, coffee, already recognized as the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine, is destined to play another part of increasing importance in our national life as a kind of national shock-absorber as well. But its role is something more than this, surely. When life is drab, it takes away its grayness. When life is sad, it brings us solace. When life is dull, it brings us new inspiration.

When we are a-weary, it brings us comfort and good cheer.

The lure of coffee lies in its appeal to our finer sensibilities; and signs are not wanting that that pursuit of the long, sweet happiness that every one is seeking will lead some of us (even in big bustling America) into footpaths that end in places where coffee will offer much of its pristine inspiration and charm. It probably will not be a coffee house anything like that of the long ago, but perhaps it will be a kind of modernized coffee club. Why not?

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COFFEE HOUSE IN HOLLAND, ABOUT 1650

After the etching by J. Beauvarlet from a painting by Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1675), which is said to be the earliest picture of a coffee house in western Europe]

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

COFFEE IN RELATION TO THE FINE ARTS

_How coffee and coffee drinking have been celebrated in painting, engraving, sculpture, caricature, lithography, and music--Epics, rhapsodies, and cantatas in praise of coffee--Beautiful specimens of the art of the potter and the silversmith as shown in the coffee service of various periods in the world's history--Some historical relics_

Coffee has inspired the imagination of many poets, musicians, and painters. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those whose genius was dedicated to the fine arts seem to have fallen under its spell and to have produced much of great beauty that has endured. To the painters, engravers, and caricaturists of that period we are particularly indebted for pictures that have added greatly to our knowledge of early coffee customs and manners.

Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), the Dutch genre painter and etcher, pupil of Frans Hals, in his "Dutch Coffee House" (1650), shows the genesis of the coffee house of western Europe about the time it still partook of some of the tavern characteristics. Coffee is being served to a group in the foreground. It is believed to be the oldest existing picture of a coffee house. The ill.u.s.tration is after the etching by J.

Beauvarlet in the graphic collection at Munich.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), the famous English painter and engraver of satirical subjects, chose the coffee houses of his time for the scenes of a number of his social caricatures. In his series, "Four Times of the Day," which throws a vivid light on the street life of London of the period of 1738, we are shown Covent Garden at 7:55 A.M. by the clock on St. Paul's Church. A prim maiden lady (said to have been sketched from an elderly relation of the artist, who cut him out of her will) on her way home from early service, accompanied by a shivering foot-boy, is scandalized by the spectacle presented by some roystering blades issuing from Tom King's notorious coffee house to the right. The _beaux_ are forcing their attentions upon the more comely of the market women in the foreground. Tom King was a scholar at Eton before he began his ign.o.ble career. At the date of this picture, it is thought he had been succeeded by his widow, Moll King, also of scandalous repute.

Scene VI of the "Rake's Progress" by Hogarth is laid at the club in White's chocolate (coffee) house, which Dr. Swift described as "the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and n.o.ble cullies." The rake has lost all his recently acquired wealth, pulls off his wig and flings himself upon the floor in a paroxysm of fury and execration. In allusion to the burning of White's in 1733, flames are seen bursting from the wainscot, but the pre-occupied gamblers take no heed, even of the watchman crying "Fire!" To the left is seated a highwayman, with horse pistol and black mask in a skirt pocket of his coat. He is so engrossed in his thoughts that he does not notice the boy at his side offering a gla.s.s of liquor on a tray. The scene well depicts the low estate to which White's had fallen. It recalls a bit of dialogue from Farquhar's _Beaux' Stratagem_ (act III, scene 2), where Aimwell says to Gibbet, who is a highwayman: "Pray, sir, ha'nt I seen your face at Will's Coffee House?" "Yes sir, and at White's, too," answers the highwayman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE CLUB AT WHITE'S COFFEE HOUSE, 1733

From a painting in the series, "The Rake's Progress," by William Hogarth]

After the fire, the club and chocolate house were removed to Gaunt's coffee house. The removal was thus announced in the _Daily Post_ of May 3:

This is to acquaint all n.o.blemen and gentlemen that Mr. Arthur having had the misfortune to be burnt out of White's Chocolate House is removed to Gaunt's Coffee House, next the St. James Coffee House in St. James Street, where he humbly begs they will favour him with their company as usual.

Alessandro Longhi (1733-1813) the Italian painter and engraver, called the Venetian Hogarth, in one of his pictures presenting life and manners in Venice during the years of her decadence, shows Goldoni, the dramatist, as a visitor in a cafe of the period, with a female mendicant soliciting alms.

In the Louvre at Paris hangs the "Pet.i.t Dejeuner" by Francois Boucher (1703-1770), famous court painter of Louis XV. It shows a French breakfast-room of the period of 1744, and is interesting because it ill.u.s.trates the introduction of coffee into the home; it shows also the coffee service of the time.

In Van Loo's portrait of Madame de Pompadour, second mistress and political adviser of Louis XV of France, the coffee service of a later period of the eighteenth century appears. The Nubian servant is shown offering the marquise a demi-ta.s.se which has just been poured from the covered oriental pot which succeeded the original Arabian-Turkish boiler, and was much in vogue at the time.

Coffee and Madame du Barry (or would it be more polite to say Madame du Barry and coffee?) inspired the celebrated painting of Madame de Pompadour's successor in the affections of Louis "the well beloved."

This is ent.i.tled "Madame du Barry at Versailles", and in the Versailles catalog it is described as painted by Decreuse after Drouais. Decreuse was a pupil of Gros, and painted many of the historical portraits at Versailles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM KING'S COFFEE HOUSE IS COVENT GARDEN, 1738

From a printing in the series, "Four Times of the Day," by William Hogarth]

Malcolm C. Salaman, in his _French Color Prints of the XVIII Century_, referring to Dagoty's print of this picture, done in 1771, says, "the original has been attributed to Francois Hubert Drouais, but there can be little doubt that the original portraiture was from the hand of the engraver (Dagoty), as the style is far inferior to Drouais." He thus describes it:

Here we see the last of Louis XV's mistresses, sitting in her bedroom in that alluring retreat of hers at Louveciennes, near the woods of Marly, as she takes her cup of coffee from her pet attendant, the little negro boy, Zamore, as the Prince de Conti had named him, all brave in red and gold. Doubtless she is expecting the morning visit of the King, no longer the handsome young gallant, but old and leaden-eyed, and puffy-cheeked; and perhaps it will be on this very morning that she will wheedle Louis, in a moment of extravagant badinage, into appointing the negro boy to be Governor of the Chateau and Pavilion of Louveciennes at a handsome salary, just as, on another day, she playfully teased the jaded old sensualist into decorating with the cordon bleu her cuisiniere when it was triumphantly revealed to him that the dinner he had been praising with enthusiastic gusto was, after all, the work of a woman cook, the very possibility of which he had contemptuously doubted. But as we look at these two, the royal mistress and her little black favorite, we forget the "well beloved" and his voluptuous pleasures and indulgences, for in the shadows we see another picture, some twenty years on, when the proud unconscionable beauty, no longer _reine de la main gauche_, stands before the dreaded Tribunal of the Terror, while Zamore, the treacherous, ungrateful negro, dismissed from his service at Louveciennes and now devoted to the committee of public safety, and one of her implacable accusers, sends her shrieking to the guillotine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PEt.i.t DeJEUNER," BY BOUCHER

Showing the home coffee service of the period of 1744]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE SERVICE IN THE HOME OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR--PAINTING BY VAN LOO]

The introduction of the coffee house into Europe was memorialized by Franz Schams, the genre painter, pupil of the Vienna Academy, in a beautiful picture ent.i.tled "The First Coffee House in Vienna, 1684,"

owned by the Austrian Art Society. A lithographic reproduction was executed by the artist and printed by Joseph Stoufs in Vienna. There are several specimens in the United States; and the ill.u.s.tration printed on page 48 has been made from one of these in the possession of the author.

The picture shows the interior of the Blue Bottle, where Kolschitzky opened the first coffee house in Vienna. The hero-proprietor stands in the foreground pouring a cup of the beverage from an oriental coffee pot, and another is suspended from the coffee-house sign that hangs over the fireplace. In the fire alcove a woman is pounding coffee in a mortar. Men and women in the costumes of the period are being served coffee by a Vienna _madchen_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADAME DU BARRY AND HER SLAVE BOY ZAMORE--PAINTING BY DECREUSE]

The painters Marilhat, Descamps, and de Tournemine have pictured cafe scenes; the first in his "Cafe sur une route de Syrie", which was shown at the Salon of 1844; the second in his "Cafe Turc", which figured at the Exposition of 1855; and the third in his "Cafe en Asia Mineure", which received honors at the Salon of 1859, and attracted attention at the Universal Exposition of 1867.

A decorative panel designed for the buffet at the Paris Opera House by S. Mazerolles was shown at the Exposition of 1878. A French artist, Jacquand, has painted two charming compositions; one representing the reading room, and the other the interior, of a cafe.

Many German artists have shown coffee manners and customs in pictures that are now hanging in well known European galleries. Among others, mention should be made of C. Schmidt's "The Sweets Shop of Josty in Berlin", 1845; Milde's "Pastor Rautenberg and His Family at the Coffee Table", 1833; and his "Manager Cla.s.sen and His Family at the Afternoon Coffee Table", 1840; Adolph Menzel's "Parisian Boulevard Cafe", 1870; Hugo Meith's "Sat.u.r.day Afternoon at the Coffee Table"; John Philipp's "Old Woman with Coffee Cup"; Friedrich Walle's "Afternoon Coffee in the Court Gardens at Munich"; Paul Meyerheim's "Oriental Coffee House"; and Peter Philippi's (Dusseldorf) "Kaffeebesuch."

At the Exposition des Beaux Arts, Salon of 1881, there was shown P.A.

Ruffio's picture, "Le cafe vient au secours de la Muse" (Coffee comes to the aid of the Muse), in which the graceful form of an oriental ewer appears.

The "Coffee House at Cairo," a canvas by Jean Leon Gerome (1824-1904) that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has been much admired. It shows the interior of a typical oriental coffee house with two men near a furnace at the left preparing the beverage; a man seated on a wicker basket about to smoke a hooka; a dervish dancing; and several persons seated against the wall in the background.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COFFEE HOUSE AT CAIRO--PAINTING BY GeRoME IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK]

The New York Historical Society acquired in 1907 from Miss Margaret A.

Ingram an oil painting of the "Tontine Coffee House." It was painted in Philadelphia by Francis Guy, and was sold at a raffle, after having been admired by President John Adams. It shows lower Wall Street in 1796-1800, with the Tontine coffee house on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets, where its more famous predecessor, the Merchants coffee house, was located before it moved to quarters diagonally opposite.

Charles P. Gruppe's (_b._ 1860) painting showing General "Washington's Official Welcome to New York by City and State Officials at the Merchants Coffee House," April 23, 1789, just one week before his inauguration as first president of the United States, is a colorful canvas that has been much praised for its atmosphere and historical a.s.sociations. It is the property of the author.

The art museums and libraries of every country contain many beautiful water-colors, engravings, prints, drawings, and lithographs, whose creators found inspiration in coffee. s.p.a.ce permits the mention of only a few.

T.H. Shepherd has preserved for us b.u.t.ton's, afterward the Caledonien coffee house, Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, in a water-color drawing of 1857; Tom's coffee house, 17 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, 1857; Slaughter's coffee house in St. Martin's Lane, 1841; also, in 1857, the Lion's Head at b.u.t.ton's, put up by Addison and now the property of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn.