Plate
ca. 1775 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Tea began to be imported into Britain from the middle of the 17th century but remained a luxury item until import duties were abolished in 1784. A fashionable and social drink, during the 18th century it was prepared in front of guests. English tea drinkers differed from their Chinese counterparts by preferring to drink tea hot and with milk and sugar, the latter becoming increasingly available through West Indies sugar plantations which relied on the exploited labour of enslaved African people.
‘The Tea Party’ engraving by Robert Hancock, which appears on this plate, is one of the most popular designs to have been used on 18th century English ceramics. It shows a couple drinking tea in a garden, attended by a young black male servant who pours hot water from a kettle into a teapot, once again the inclusion of this Black servant is another way in the black body was bought, sold, exploited and aestheticised in eighteenth-century Britain.
‘The Tea Party’ engraving by Robert Hancock, which appears on this plate, is one of the most popular designs to have been used on 18th century English ceramics. It shows a couple drinking tea in a garden, attended by a young black male servant who pours hot water from a kettle into a teapot, once again the inclusion of this Black servant is another way in the black body was bought, sold, exploited and aestheticised in eighteenth-century Britain.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Materials and techniques | Earthenware transfer-printed in black enamel and moulded |
Brief description | Plate of white earthenware with a wavy edge and moulded, Staffordshire, ca. 1775. |
Physical description | Plate of white earthenware with a wavy edge, and moulded with feather pattern. Transfer-printed in black enamel with scene of 'The Tea Party' in the centre of bowl, and with raised edge with repeated motif of detached sprays of flowers. |
Dimensions |
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Credit line | Given by Lady Charlotte Schreiber |
Subjects depicted | |
Summary | Tea began to be imported into Britain from the middle of the 17th century but remained a luxury item until import duties were abolished in 1784. A fashionable and social drink, during the 18th century it was prepared in front of guests. English tea drinkers differed from their Chinese counterparts by preferring to drink tea hot and with milk and sugar, the latter becoming increasingly available through West Indies sugar plantations which relied on the exploited labour of enslaved African people. ‘The Tea Party’ engraving by Robert Hancock, which appears on this plate, is one of the most popular designs to have been used on 18th century English ceramics. It shows a couple drinking tea in a garden, attended by a young black male servant who pours hot water from a kettle into a teapot, once again the inclusion of this Black servant is another way in the black body was bought, sold, exploited and aestheticised in eighteenth-century Britain. |
Other number | Sch. II 394 - Schreiber number |
Collection | |
Accession number | 414:1141-1885 |
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Record created | April 26, 2006 |
Record URL |
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