Description:
With no Chinese porcelain protoypes to copy, British ceramic tea canisters of the 18th century took several different forms. They are mostly, however, square or octagonal with a wide cylindrical lip, and seem to derive from the japanned metal canisters used for displaying and dispensing tea and coffee in grocers' shops. By contrast, smarter tea canisters of glass or silver tended to copy the wooden tea chest, complete with its wavy metal edging and corners. Only later in the century was the little baluster-shaped canister copied by English porcelain factories (for example, Worcester) which imitated Chinese vase-like versions made solely for export. English creamware press-molded, rectangular double tea canister with two round necks (lids missing) over two compartments within for tea (probably black and green) and four ball feet; there were four ornaments (now missing) on the top four corners. The outer walls of the double-walled canister are decorated with a sprig-molded winged female mask over a swag of husks on the center sides and ends; and pierced with bands of an openwork pattern around the necks on the top, and sides and ends. The canister base is inscribed in script through the glaze, "Thomas B [owsin]?, whose identity is as yet unknown, and there is an outline of a hand at the end of the name. During Historic Deerfield's Creamware Symposium, April 26. 2008, Thomas Walford and Diana Edwards identified this tea canister as circa 1780, Staffordshire; Pat Halfpenny thought that it was probably English, but possibly Continental European.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2006.33.47 |
