Plate thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 138, The Harry and Carol Djanogly Gallery

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.


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
  • Diameter: 19.4cm
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 createdApril 26, 2006
Record URL
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