Description:
English soft-paste porcelain teapot with a domed lid with a squashed knop finial and a thrown, round body with a straight collar, round loop handle, and applied footrim, which is decorated in the Imari palette. Imported Chinese wine jars influenced the early design of European teapots. By about 1700, a pear-shaped model had come into vogue, followed by globular or bullet-shaped pots around 1720. The combined use of silver and ceramic tea wares was customary, even after English and Continental porcelain factories began producing complete services. Only in the 1790s did complete and matching tea services become common. This example was made in the Bow Porcelain Works, copying a Chinese Imari original (a style originating in Japan and copied by the Chinese) with its painted Imari decoration of rocks and flowers in blue, red, and gilding on both the body and lid. This bone-ash porcelain body, the precursor to Bone china which became the traditional English body, was ideal for the manufacturer of figures, plates, dishes, and dinner and tea wares. The Bow Factory (c.1747-1776) was established in a heavily industrialized district east of London, known as Stratford-le-Bow, which Bow management called "the New Canton" and built their factory to look like a "hong" or foreign factory of the British East India Company. The porcelain factory viewed Chinese export porcelains as their main competition and sought to imitate them as closely as possible with much of their output decorated in underglaze blue, mainly with Oriental-style scenic designs. In the enameled patterns, such as this example, some of the earlier, fashionable Japanese-style designs were copied. The English porcelain expert David Redstone confirmed this teapot as Bow and dated it during his visit with members of the the English Ceramic Circle, May 14, 2010. According to ceramics scholar, Maurice Hillis (in March, 2003), similarly decorated sherds are also associated with the Vauxhall Factory in London, England (see HD 2000.24.6). There are no marks on the base but there are two paper labels on base: red border label reads "R51" and newer white label reads "POX 11." Condition: There are firing crack to lid, chip to base rim, and small chips to spout.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2000.24.5 |
