Teapoy

Object Type
This pedestal table has a lifting top which reveals two lidded compartments for storing tea and two others containing cut-glass bowls for mixing the dried tea. (The latter do not appear to be original to the piece.) It was both a practical object and a means of displaying the hostess's modish taste in furniture as she presided over tea and gossip.

Originally a teapoy was a small three-legged occasional table. The word originates from the Persian and Hindi for 'three'. In George Smith's Household Furniture (1808), teapoys are illustrated as small stands with tray tops supported on a central pillar, 'used in drawing-rooms to prevent the company rising from their seats when taking refreshments'. However, over time the name made people associate them with tea, and therefore the phrase was also applied to tea chests on legs, such as this piece.

Design & Designing
The front of the chest is carved with a panel of scrolling foliage in a style loosely derived from ancient Greece. The sides are decorated with rosettes flanked by palmettes of a type common in Etruscan art from ancient Italy.