It is amazing that an object, possibly used everyday, that can so easily be dropped or knocked over and broken, could ever survive 250 years, but that is the case with some of these beautiful old teapots.
Worcester Porcelain teapot painted in puce enamel (the First or ‘Dr Wall’ Period). About 1750-1758
Of course, many of them have been in grand collections and as such probably infrequently handled. I can imagine that most of these prized painted examples have not been in regular use for a couple of centuries.
Porcelain teapot with underglaze blue and enamel decoration. Nicholas Crisp, Vauxhall, London. 1753-1764
Porcelain teapot painted in enamels. William Baddeley (or William Littler at Longton Hall, Staffordshire) 1777-1784
They are currently on display as part of the Early Porcelain (1740-1780) section of the The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
For most of the 18th century imported tea was an expensive beverage not least as it was heavily taxed. The high price (5 shillings per pound in 1711) affordable only by the wealthy, was also maintained by the virtual monopoly held by the merchants of the East India Company. Although the tax was reduced in 1723 and again in 1745, tea was smuggled into the country. It was also adulterated with other ingredients such as dried hawthorn leaves. I can’t imagine what that tasted like.
‘The Smoking Party’ teapot. Transfer-printed in black. This pot impressed WEDGWOOD mark and worker’s mark. About 1775
Towards the end of the 18th century following pressure from Richard Twining, Chairman of the London Tea Dealers, the Tea and Window Act of 1784 reduced the duty from 119 per cent to 12 per cent per pound. With such a reduction in price tea became available to the lower levels of society and consumption rose, and, within ten years imports had quadrupled and tea smuggling disappeared. It was William Pitt the Younger who introduced these new much lower rates and at the same time, to mitigate the loss of revenue from tea imports, he increased the window tax hence the Tea and Window Act.
Lowestoft porcelain miniature tea service on mahogany tray. Tea service painted in underglaze blue. 1770 – 1780 Lowestoft porcelain factory, Lowestoft, Suffolk.
Naturally, teapots were used for tea, but, interestingly not exclusively tea. Below, this cream, textured teapot is one such example. Larger than most of teapots in the Early Porcelain section of the display, it may well have been used for punch. I should think that punch was infinitely preferable to ‘hawthorn’ tea.
Porcelain with moulded decoration possibly used for punch. William Littler at Longton Hall, Staffordshire. About 1775.
Survivors from the 18th century. Worcester teapots from 1760-1780. Blue teapots painted with blue underglaze and colourful teapots painted with enamels and gilt. Worcester Porcelains (the First or ‘Dr Wall’ Period). The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
From the mid-seventeenth century onwards tea-drinking arrived in England and over the next century the English started making teapots and gradually formulated a version of porcelain that could be made into ‘china’ teapots. Originally porcelain production was a Chinese secret, but by the 1740s a form of porcelain was being produced in Britain. Chinese porcelain was very expensive and highly rated as noted by Nicholas Crisp in 1743.
The essential properties of China-ware, besides the Beauty of its Colours, are these: that it is smooth, and as easily cleaned as Glass, and at the same Time bears the hottest Liquors without danger of breaking.
Nicholas Crisp writing in the Public Advertiser in 1743
It was only natural that the innovative potters of England would want to be able to make teapots as good as the much praised China-ware. As a result of fierce, commercial competition to successfully copy these much admired Chinese imports, soft paste porcelain was developed. It was white and glossy and thinly potted to produce teapots similar in appearance to the Chinese imports. However, as soft paste porcelain is fired at relatively low temperatures some of the early teapots shattered when filled with hot water.
Some manufacturers recommended ‘Warming the Pot’. That is slowly warming a teapot to avoid it shattering. It didn’t take many years before soft porcelain was perfected and teapots became reliable receptacles for boiling water, however, ‘Warming the Pot’ persisted. I learnt the ritual from my mother without question, but I have thought, on more than one occasion, why am I doing this as boiling water poured over tea immediately makes the teapot more than warm! Well, now I know – and I won’t be warming the pot in the future! Unless somebody gives me a new plausible reason.
Tea and teapots came to Britain from China in the middle of the 17th century. The teapots were made either of hard red stoneware or white porcelain and were extremely expensive, but by the 1690s enterprising English potters were producing more affordable copies. In Staffordshire, David and John Elers made unglazed red stoneware from local red clay.
These ‘red’ teapots were imitations of the Chinese teapots from the province of Yixing.
Gradually tea drinking spread from the fashionable and rich to the fashionable and aspirational. Aspirational individuals were those who wanted to emulate the habits of the gentry, including their new and elaborate social ritual of tea-drinking. Demand for teawares increased, both imported from China and locally manufactured in England, giving the Staffordshire Potteries a huge boost as the area began to industrialize in the early eighteenth century. Enterprising potters developed their own range of decorative effects as they attempted to copy Chinese porcelain.
Staffordshire salt-glazed stoneware copy, or ‘in the style of’, of an imported Chinese porcelain teapot. The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
This salt-glazed stoneware teapot has been painted in imitation of Chinese ‘famille rose’ porcelain. The term ‘famille rose’ describes a popular style of decoration used on porcelain produced in China in the 18th century for the Western market. The style was characterised by soft colours, particularly rose pink. Shells were a common decorative motif in the mid-18th century and several different models of shell teapots were produced by the creative Staffordshire potters at this time.
More innovative new glazes were also developed that mimicked precious stones such as agate (shown in this teapot below). The unnamed Staffordshire potter who made this teapot has also added a Buddhist lion knob to the lid to enhance its Oriental appeal.
Agateware teapot. Stoneware teapot with surface agate decoration achieved by using stained slip. The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
By the 1770s new designs for teapots featuring fruit or vegetable mouldings became very popular.
Vegetable leaves and sweetcorn teapot. The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.Leaf decorated earthenware teapot with coloured glazes. Mid 18th century. The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
It wasn’t just the glazing and surface decoration of teapots that saw extensive innovation, as during the middle of the 18th century the first novelty teapots were introduced. Factories had responded to widening markets and pushed developments in materials and techniques allowing production of moulded as opposed to thrown teapots such as this sitting camel teapot.
This teapot is made in white salt-glazed stoneware and is modelled as a sitting camel, with its legs tucked under its body. It has been made using the slip casting technique. Slip casting using moulds had actually been invented 50 years previously by David and John Elers, but was revived to allow the manufacture of complex and highly irregular shapes in bulk. Slip casting involved thinning white clays mixed with calcined flint to a viscous liquid that was poured into hollow plaster moulds. These moulds were made by specialist craftsmen. Enough Staffordshire slip-cast camel teapots have survived that they are not all sitting on the shelves of museums – you can still buy one from an antique dealer or auction house if you have a spare £5000!
An orange-brown teapot. Lead-glazed earthenware with sprigged decoration (1750). Produced for the newly emerging teawares market. The Twining Teapot Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum.
Of course, in the mid-18th century more ordinary folk might have saved up to buy a less glamorous teapot perhaps one similar to this orange-brown earthenware example. It would have cost a shilling, equivalent to about £70 today. Teapots like this one were mass-produced and sold through ‘Staffordshire Warehouses’. These shops had opened across the country in most major towns and cities selling teawares to meet the demand for this newly acquired social pastime – ‘tea-drinking’.
‘Spitting Image’ puppet of Margaret Thatcher. One of several versions of Mrs T that featured in the ITV series in the 1980s and 1990s. Photograph: ITV/Rex Features
A week today in the UK there’s a little event called ‘The General Election’ and with some savvy timing the James Hyman Gallery in London has put on an exhibition of photographs called ‘Spitting’. The exhibition features photographs of the original puppets from the 1980s and 1990s satirical series ‘Spitting Image’ which regularly lampooned the contemporary gang of politicians. The life-sized puppets are part of James Hyman’s private art collection and photographers Andrew Bruce and Anna Fox have clearly relished capturing the ferocious, savage puppet caricatures.
The TV series was the work of Peter Fluck and Roger Law. They designed the life-sized puppets and also made pots and teapots of their caricatures. Some of the more popular pieces from Luck and Flaw Productions were made into a stoneware collection by Carlton Ware. This ‘Mrs T’ (Margaret Thatcher) teapot is displayed in The Twining Teapot Gallery at the Norwich Castle Museum.
Margaret Thatcher teapot based on the ‘Spitting Image’ puppet. Luck and Flaw. Stoneware by Carlton Ware. c.1985
Margaret Thatcher teapot based on the ‘Spitting Image’ puppet. Luck and Flaw. Stoneware by Carlton Ware. c.1985
Although no longer in production a Mrs T teapot can be bought from between £70-£80 and a Mrs T jug from between £50-£60 from various shops selling collectible ceramics.
Mrs T Spitting Image Carlton Ware jug – continuing a long British tradition of biting, political satire stretching back to the 18th-century work of Hogarth, Gillray and Rowlandson.
Can you imagine pouring your afternoon tea from one of these fascinating teapots? Here we have three delightful quaint teapots that form a little series decorated with scenes from the parable of the Prodigal Son. A parable that has been visually rendered in various forms over the centuries usually as a serious composition in heavy oils which makes these vibrant, slightly racy images from the 18th century so refreshing. These creamware teapots were made by William Greatbatch and can be found in The Twining Teapot Gallery at the Norwich Castle Museum.
William Greatbatch creamware teapot and lid circa 1770-82 This is a cylindrical form teapot with leaf-capped spout and ear-shaped strap handle, printed and enamelled on the front with The Prodigal Son Receives his Patrimony, the reverse with The Prodigal Son’s Departure, between moulded fretwork to the rims. Stands about 5 inches tall.
Creamware was popular through the 1760s to the 1780s as it was a more affordable earthenware version of fashionable, ‘high society’ porcelain. The development of creamware is a fine example of the mid-eighteenth-century technological drive improving pottery technique and glazing skills to achieve a commercial advantage. Creamware was successfully exported to Europe with English factory catalogues translated into German, Dutch, French and Spanish.
William Greatbatch creamware teapot and lid circa 1770-82 This is a cylindrical form teapot. Printed and enamelled on the front with The Prodigal Son in Excess, the reverse with The Prodigal Son in Misery.
William Greatbatch creamware teapot and lid circa 1770-82 Printed and enamelled on the front with The Prodigal Son returns Reclaim’d, the reverse with The Prodigal Son feasted on his Return.
William Greatbatch (1735-1813) was one of the talented potters working with creamware. He was a prolific designer and maker of potters’ moulds during the second half of the 18th century. He ran his own pottery in Staffordshire and sometimes worked for Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795). These teapots show pictures that have been transfer-printed and coloured with enamels to decorate the thinly potted earthenware. The images are printed onto the teapot that has been covered with a creamy coloured lead glaze. Alternatively, light creamware items were simply embellished with a pithy verse.
Ralph Wedgwood teapot with transfer-printed text in black. 1789-96 Probably made at Hill Pottery Burslem, Staffordshire. Impressed WEDGWOOD & CO. mark 1789-96
It is amazing that an object, possibly used everyday, that can so easily be dropped or knocked over and broken, could ever survive 250 years, but that is the case with some of these beautiful old teapots.
Agnes Ashe 