Description:
The years around 1750 were extraordinarily creative and prosperous for the Staffordshire potteries in England. Potters responded to widening markets and changes in dining and drinking habits both at home and abroad. They developed new designs, materials, and techniques. Salt-glazed stoneware, of which this teapot is made, was one of the major product lines. It was remarkably tough and could be slip cast into complex shapes using plaster of Paris molds. Camel-shaped teapots were just one of the exotic animal forms added to their repertoire which included squirrels too. A fragment of an identical camel teapot was found in Hamilton harbor on the island of Bermuda. Slip cast camel-shaped teapot, the camel is on its knees with a strapped howdah on top of its back, in the center of the howdah there is a molded image of a man in profile smoking a pipe; the spout is press molded and modeled as the head and neck of the camel, the handle is molded in the shape of a serpent with round nobs and scales along its body with a tripartite terminal, the lid of the teapot is rectangular and stepped with a tear drop shaped finial. These camel teapots must have been very popular - several variations in design and size are known. Provenance: ex coll. Troy Chappell, Miss D. E. Fletcher. Condition: teapot has had its finial broken tip off and reglued and there are several scattered chips including to an edge of finial, near air hole, on rim, and several under rim and to inner collar.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2016.10.1 |
