Mass Production

During the last quarter of the 18th century the centre of the British porcelain industry was in the heartlands of the Staffordshire potteries. The New Hall factory of Shelton was just one of those producing large numbers of tea and coffee services for the rising urban middle classes in hard-paste porcelain, copying the clean shapes of late Georgian silver. Typical helmet-shaped cream jugs (£60-£100) and oval teapots decorated with small gilt or monochrome floral sprigs (£200-£500) can be identified by their pattern number. (more…)

Although the finest complete services are out of reach for most collectors, it is possible to find beautiful single pieces such as teabowls, coffee cups and saucers, teapots, jugs and chocolate beakers at reasonable prices.

Tea, coffee, and chocolate have been firm favourites with the British ever since a ‘drink called by the Chineans tcha’ was introduced in the 1630s, the first coffee house was opened in London in 1650, and chocolate was first advertised for sale as a drink in 1657. The three beverages were to have a profound influence on the ceramics industries of Britain and the rest of Europe. The high cost of tea when it first arrived in Europe was responsible for keeping early wares small, so that such a luxury item would not be wasted. (more…)

Beautiful vessels and plates of porcellana, large and small . . . for one Venetian groat you could actually have three bowls so beautiful that no one would know how to devise them better. . . .’ So wrote the young Venetian Marco Polo about the yingqing (`misty blue‘) porcelain he saw on his journeys through China in about 1271-5.

Until this time, China was virtually unknown to Europeans except as `Seres’, the land of silk, although as early as the Tang dynasty of AD 618-906, jewels, horses, medicines, wild animals and literature were flowing into the country from India, Arabia and Japan. (more…)

Rococo STY LE was the height of fashion in the 1740s and 50s, but few purely Rococo rooms have survived in Britain. Perhaps it was too difficult to make a pleasing scheme of such profuse ornament with its swirling flowers and scrolls, asymmetric forms and figures caught in the instant of movement. Nevertheless, householders — especially in London — eager to be in tune with the latest trends, included Rococo features in some of their rooms. (more…)

A few years after the turn of the eighteenth century the spoon eventually developed into the utensil which we use today. By 1720 its stem had become gracefully curved and terminated in a flat, rounded end which turned forward or upward and upon which it was rested on the table, so that the back of the bowl was uppermost in the French way. This Hanoverian rat-tail spoon continued in fashion for a few more years, the rat-tail gradually disappearing to be replaced by small droplets, either one or two, at the back of the bowl, or the increasingly fashionable scallop-shell, typical of the rococo period. The stem evolved into a flatter form, terminating by the 1760s in a curve which turned in the opposite direction to its predecessor, ie backward instead of forward, so that the spoon could be placed on the table with the interior of its bowl showing,as is still the custom in England and elsewhere today. This is termed the `Old English’ pattern and has been the basic form for spoons ever since. (more…)

It always seems a pity that the tea kettle is no longer required in the making of tea, and indeed has not been for generations since it was succeeded by the tea urn during the last 25 years or so of the eighteenth century, for it was among the most magnificent of all rococo domestic silver. Its introduction was born of the necessity for a constant supply of hot water to replenish the tiny Queen Anne teapots already discussed. The brewing of tea was a fashionable ritual in those distant days, the mistress of the house attending to it herself usually in the drawing roomor salon.

Early tea kettles were extremely plain and homely vessels, and their. rotund shape was similar to that of the pear-shaped teapot. Likewise their spouts were of the swan-neck variety, and their lids usually topped with a wooden knop. Handles were of the swing type with wooden grips, but these varied. (more…)

Comparatively few teapots were made in England before the eighteenth century and these are now exceedingly rare. As the fashion for drinking tea spread, the demand for the right kind of vessel in which to brew it brought about new types of containers for sugar, milk and tea. These tea accoutrements were made increasingly throughout the eighteenth century until, by the final decades, they had become an important branch of the silversmith’s work. Late seventeenth century teapots are unique and are mostly seen in museums. Outstanding among them is the historical conical-topped teapot (1670) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, with the spout quaintly set at right-angles to the handle, a practice which was short-lived. Another shape of this early period looks like a melon or similar fruit. (more…)

Although the tea strainer was among the numerous pieces of domestic silver which did not generally make their appearance until the very final years of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century, the English tea table was not devoid of a utensil for a similar purpose. The tea strainer bore little resemblance to this predecessor and can in no way be said to be a development of it, unlike so many other items which evolved into utensils which we use today. Its forerunner was an extraordinary little implement called the mote skimmer, which was usually a little longer than a tea spoon. Its bowl was pierced in a simple pattern and its rounded, slender tapering stem ended in a point. (more…)

Caddy spoons have long been avidly collected, and certainly the numerous styles and designs in which they were made vary enough to suit most tastes. They were produced in large numbers from approximately the last decade or so of the eighteenth century. Early tea canisters which had round, domed caps did not need a caddy spoon since, as has been mentioned, the cap was often used to measure the tea into the pot. When these small caps were superseded by larger lids, some sort of small ladle or spoon was required for the job. Gradually a small spoon with a short stem evolved and was kept in the canister with the tea. The bowl of the spoon was commonly in the shape of a shell, originating possibly from the fact that large sea-shells intended for use as ladles had often been packed in tea-chests by the Chinese. The caddy spoon as we know it did not appear in any great quantity before approximately 1790, but by the end of the century thousands were being produced in Birmingham, where silversmiths specialised in small objects. This trend continued for the following 50 years or more. (more…)

Tea was a precious commodity because of its high cost, and the very small size of early canisters reflected this when they were introduced during the final years of the seventeenth century. It is thought that the shape of the early silver tea canister imitated the shape of the Oriental stoppered jars of porcelain then being imported, because they looked rather like metal jars with a flat, rectangular base, and undecorated straight sides which curved in at the shoulders to a circular neck fitted with a slip-on, rounded cap. A late seventeenth century example might be only three inches high, but by Queen Anne’s reign they were generally taller. (more…)