Time for Tea! Selections of Teaware from the Winterthur Collection

Included with all admission tickets, Members free.

Time for Tea!
by Leslie B. Grigsby, Curator of Ceramics and Glass

Upon joining Winterthur’s curatorial staff in 1999, one of my first duties was getting to know my new collection of some 22,000 ceramic and glass objects—a monumental task. As I familiarized myself with myriad decanters and soup tureens, wineglasses and punch bowls, I hoped to discover innovative and exciting ways to entertain and inform our visitors, igniting their imaginations about these fascinating objects from the past. I began by rummaging through paper files and navigating our somewhat overwhelmed database, trying to determine the number of certain types of objects in the collection. One search for ceramic teapots, for example, yielded an unrealistic six one day, a more optimistic 73 the next. With Winterthur’s galleries and 175 period rooms, such numbers still seemed far too modest.

Recently I ran my search again using our new database (launched in September 2005). Imagine my joy—and shock—when the new count of ceramic teapots was an astounding 456! Widening the search added another 119 teapots in metalwork and a dozen or so in other materials. Keep in mind that tea sets often include not just teapots but also tea trays and hot water kettles, tea canisters, cream jugs and sugar bowls, slop bowls, and cups and saucers, not to mention teaspoons, tea strainers, and sugar tongs. What did this discovery mean to me? It’s teatime!

The new exhibition Time for Tea! Selections of Teaware from the Winterthur Collection includes nearly 200 ceramic, metalwork, and glass teawares from America, Europe, China, and even Turkey that range in date from the 1600s through the 1860s. The stage is set with teapots illustrating the evolution of popular forms and decorative styles over time, represented by examples in earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, silver, and pewter. The focus then shifts to teacups and saucers, exploring the economic and social reasons that thimble-sized, handleless tea bowls made around 1700 evolved into the often large-capacity handled cups of the early 1800s

Depending on the time period as well as the tastes, location, and economic status of the purchaser, one might select from a range of materials, decorative subjects, and styles of teaware. Through at least the mid-1700s, a single “set” often might feature a mixture of metalwork and different ceramic types. In the exhibition, several tea services help illustrate these points as well as the concept that services as we know them today—with all elements made to match. One example in floral-enameled creamware, dating from the 1760s or 1770s, represents a popular teaware type excavated at many colonial American sites. In dramatic contrast is a flamboyant silver service produced by Tiffany and Company, which was fashionable during the Victorian era.

In addition to full-size services, their “toy” (or miniature) counterparts were equally popular both here and abroad. When such small-scale goods first appeared during the mid-1700s, they were so costly that elegant ladies and children of wealthy households acquired them as luxuries. Decades later, toy tea sets became commonplace nursery equipage.

Design inspirations form an important thread throughout the exhibition. Nature provided an important source, inspiring Staffordshire creamware services molded to resemble cauliflowers and decorated with glowingly green leaves; other teaware was sponged to reproduce the appearance of tortoiseshell or painted to imitate exotic fossilized marble. Chinese shapes and motifs that traveled to the West on blue-and-white or multicolored porcelain proved to be a “Rosetta Stone,” acting as a primary inspiration for the development of the fine ceramic industry in Europe. Pewter and brass wares often imitated forms made of more costly silver. Some earthenware and porcelain vessels for serving hot beverages were coated in rich metallic lusters to imitate luxurious metal bodies and also copied fashionable metalwork forms.

Important historical events involving tea, such as the Boston Tea Party, were illustrated on prints and textiles and provide insight into changes in attitudes in colonial America—in this case, those that led to the American Revolution. A Pennsylvania Gazette article dated February 8, 1775, laments the English government’s abuses and demands: “What right … has Britain to prohibit her colonies from purchasing tea or porcelain at Canton, if they can procure it cheaper there than in London?” Satirical prints portrayed a meeting of “A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” with the participants dumping tea from their tea canisters while one member gulps punch from a bowl. In another print, titled “The BOSTONIAN’S Paying the EXCISE-MAN, or TARRING & FEATHERING,” colonists force the taxman to drink from the spout of a teapot.

Motifs on teawares also commemorate historic persons or events. Each piece of a blue-printed English pearlware service from the early 1800s shows a view titled “MOUNT VERNON / the seat of the late / GEN.L WASHINGTON.” Such objects remind us of the young nation’s deep sense of loss after the former president’s death. More anonymous subjects are represented by two cheerfully colored teapots modeled in the forms of a man and woman.

As well as the teaware itself, a rich variety of types of teas arrived in the West from exotic ports. Chinese and Indian leaves were imported, and by 1760 Pennsylvania Gazette advertisements confirm merchants’ sale of the popular bohea and green teas, in various levels of quality, as well as “hyson” and “souchon” teas. At Whitesides’ Tea Warehouse in 1799 Philadelphia, one might purchase “Imperial, Best Hyson, Hyson Skin … Souchong” or the same teas but of “second quality,” as well as “Bohea” teas.

It’s unlikely that any single exhibition could display Winterthur’s entire collection of teawares. Instead, this presentation is intended not only to highlight some personal favorites but also to portray the broad range of styles and forms made over time and across the world. I hope it will inspire you, too, to discover such fascinating objects nestled in rooms throughout the Winterthur mansion.