Object Type
Sugar was taken with tea and coffee from the late 17th century, when these beverages were introduced to European society. Originally the shape of sugar pots (then known as sugar boxes) probably derived from Chinese rice bowls. In the early 18th century, in common with tea canisters, teapots and tea bowls, British tin-glazed sugar pots (delftware) were painted with Chinese-style decoration. In time, and as production became more mechanised and more uniform in the later 18th century and the 19th, sugar bowls were made to match teapots.

Design & Designing
The shape of this sugar bowl and cover is related to French porcelain, but the decoration is Chinese in style. It imitated the early 18th-century palette known as famille rose, which consisted of warm pinks and greens on a translucent white ground. Although other decorative fashions came and went throughout the 19th century, Chinese motifs and styles of painting were consistently fashionable for tea wares, and interest in the arts of Eastern Asia was further encouraged by the influx of Japanese art and artefacts from the mid-1860s onwards. The distinction between Japan and China often became blurred in the popular mind.

Materials & Making
This sugar bowl is made of Wedgwood's 'pearlware', introduced by Wedgwood in 1779 as an improvement on his creamware. Much whiter than creamware, pearlware is made with a higher proportion of flint and white clay in the body and a touch of cobalt in the glaze. The pattern outline has been printed by means of a transfer and the colours are painted by hand. The gilding is applied last and must go through a separate final firing at a lower temperature.