Teapot stand

Object Type
This teapot stand is from a tea and coffee service for six people. It was used to protect the tea table from spillages of hot water when the teapot was filled from a kettle, and from the pot burning the table's surface. Such stands are occasionally shown in 18th-century paintings of tea drinking. In 1770, when a similar Chelsea tea and coffee service was offered for sale, it included a 'teapot and stand'. The stand may also have been placed over the slop basin to serve as a plate for slices of bread or cakes. Afternoon and after-dinner tea were generally served by the lady of the house in the drawing room in comfortably-off households.

Design & Designing
The service is similar to one offered at auction in London in 1770. This was described as 'a very curious and matchless tea and coffee equipage, crimson and gold, most inimitably enamell'd in figures, from the designs of Watteau'. Although the figure subjects here are not directly copied from the work of the French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), they are certainly inspired by his work.

Materials & Making
The Chelsea porcelain factory introduced the crimson ground around 1760, when a London auction of Chelsea porcelain included 'a few pieces of some new Colours which have been found this year by Mr [Nicholas] Sprimont, the Proprietor, at a very large Expence, incredible Labour, and close Application'.