In the greatest possible contrast to all this white and cream-coloured wares come teapots in the austerest black –but all the same with decorative possibilities for those with an eye for contrasts. There are those in black basaltes, an unglazed sort of stoneware originally developed by Josiah Wedgwood. It is stained black all through and usually has only moulded decoration, but there are some types with red encaustic colours. The shapes are pretty well the same as in jasper ware. Then there are the so-called “Jackfield” pots, which are actually on red earthenware, but covered by a shiny black glaze sometimes with gilded decoration—though this is often quite worn off from years of washing. The early Jackfield ware has a browny tinge, but the trade also uses this name for black-glazed Victoria wares which sprout all over with coloured pads of flower and curlicues.

Apart from the earthenware, there is still the whole rang of eighteenth-century porcelain, although here the perfe specimen may cost you a fortune. This applies especial! to items like the small octagonal Chelsea teapots painted with scenes illustrating Aesop’s fables, or early Dr. Wall Worcester with “scale-blue” grounds and panels o painted birds. On the other hand I have this year seen two small early Derby teapots go at auction for four pounds, and a Bow specimen, brightly enamelled with roses and pansies, for eight. Similarly, small early Worcester pots with Chinese-style painting or transfer printing, go for five pounds or less. You should certainly try to get a Dr. Wall pot in your collection even if it is a modest one in “blue and white”, for at this period the factory prided itself upon its tea-wares, claiming that its soapstone porcelain stood up to heat better than any other maker’s.

Antique Collector MagazineMoving on into the nineteenth century, New Hall claims a place in the collection if only because of its distinctive shape—obviously taken from the silver teapots of the period. Not all of them were made at the Shelton factory: those that were often hear either New Hall within a double circle or a pattern number in script. Excellent specimens of this ware are about at no very great price, and I saw a much repaired one recently for no more than ten shillings.

Then there are the typical Rockingham and Coalport types, often wonderfully smothered with applied petals and leaves. All that intricate hand-work would have made them expensive even in their own day—and, of course, difficult to find nowadays without a chip or two. Also much sought after, but more within reach, are Spode teapots in their famous “felspar porcelain,” often decorated with painted views.

If you decide that all these aristocrats of teapothood are a little beyond you, why not look around among the Victorian versions which echo some of the earlier styles: these, in my view are by now just as validly antique as any others. Earlier on I mentioned the New Hall version of a silver shape. Look also at the Wedgwood pot made after the firm started making bone china again in 1878; this too is obviously after an early silver shape. I also have a teapot and a few other pieces, which I picked up for ten shillings, in a tray outside a secondhand furniture shop. Although they were made by Copelands (successors to Spodes) within the last fifty years or so, the painted birds and butterflies are straight out of the eighteenth century : so too are the intertwined handle and rosebud knop.

There is a sentimental angle to collecting these later wares, too. All over the inside of this little pot is a minute brown crazing, from the many thousands of cups of tea that have been brewed in it. One wonders where, and by whom, and what was talked about at those gossipy teatimes.

To conclude, I think one might spare at least one shelf for the eccentrics of the teapot world, so let us glance at a few oddities. I have already mentioned the creamware double pot. There is another Chinese pot like a pair of barrels, and the idea seems to be to make the tea in one compartment and let it flow through the other before coming out, presumably to entrap the leaves on the way. There is also that mysterious item, the Cadogan teapot, said to be made by a former Countess of that name. It is peach-shaped, and you fill it from the bottom, through a tube which goes right up inside. What special purpose it serves, and how you ever get the tea-leaves out has always puzzled me, and I strongly suspect that it wasn’t originally a teapot at all but a Chinese wine pot, and probably used here for hot punch. You sometimes come across pots which have every appearance of teapots, but have no strainer at the base of the spout, These, I suspect, were not teapots either, but punch pots.

Then there is our monster which seems to be pouring outentirely on its own. This, in fact, is what it is doing—or very nearly. It is called “Doulton’s Self-Pouring Teapot,” and was made between 1894 and 1905. You lift the lid, then push it down slowly holding your finger over the little hole in the knob. This forces the liquid through a strainer near the bottom and up out of the spout with the force of a hose. I don’t recommend using this at the table without first having a little practice in the kitchen sink.

Lastly—and obviously for the top shelf—is the fat lady of the collection, the Barge teapot. These teapots, which can carry up to a gallon of tea, were mostly made as presentation pieces in the small potteries around Burtonon-Trent, and they generally have a miniature replica of themselves on the lid. One I bought a few years ago was made to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. On one side it bears the legend GOD SAVE OUR NOBLE QUEEN and on the other the rhyme:

‘Tis very rare

To have such a lot

So have a drink

From our teapot.

I found it in a junk shop, and because the handle and spout of the tiny pot was broken I got it for only 7s. 6d. But I have seen anything up to five pounds asked for them, according to the type of shop. Apparently they are called “Barge” teapots because many of them were bought by the canal people passing through the district where they were made. But in that area itself they are called “Rockingham” pots—which just shows you how confusing names can be.

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Teapots Collection continue…