D2544. Blue and White Teapot and Cover

Delft, circa 1720

The bulbous body decorated with floral and foliate motifs, a central floral design with vines and stylized flowers on either side, underneath the handle and spout, which is painted with blue accents along the tip, the handle features a row of blue comma-shaped marks repeated at the rim of the cover which features a matching floral pattern and a rounded knop.

DIMENSIONS
Height: 13.5 cm. (5.3 in.)

NOTE
Initially, tea was consumed for medicinal purposes in Europe, since it “suivert het grove bloedt, verdrijft de sware droomen, (…) ’t verjaegt de dommigheijt en ’t sterckt Venus’ handel (gedienstig voor nieuw getrouwde)” (“purifies coarse blood, drives out heavy dreams, (…) chases away stupidity and strengthens Venus’ affairs (useful for newly weds)”. Although it took some time, the craze for tea drinking swept through Europe in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.

Once the practice became fashionable, it changed the rhythm of people’s daily lives. Tea could be drunk once or twice a day, but afternoon gatherings became the new habit. Furthermore, it inspired people to acquire the necessary accoutrements for serving the drink. In the seventeenth century, these necessities could be of a variety of materials, and even a combination of Chinese and European tea wares. However, by the end of the eighteenth century, it was customary to have complete matching sets. Tea was presented to guests in beautiful tea canisters, and then strongly brewed in small pots. These concentrated brews were then diluted with hot water from a bouilloire, a silver, copper (although this material was thought not so suitable for boiling water) or pewter kettle on a stand over a brazier. When the guest wanted to try a different kind of tea, he or she could rinse the cup in the slop bowl. The new drink should be sipped as hot as possible, but if too hot, it could be poured on the saucer to cool a little and sipped from there. With
tea being very expensive, the cups were small, so it was not uncommon if one would have up to twenty or even fifty cups during a tea party.

Dutch Delftware teapots are rare, since vessels made from regular earthenware were comparably coarser than porcelain, and considered less elegant and pleasant to drink from. More important is the fact that earthenware is not the best material to hold boiling water. Heat is conducted more readily by earthenware, being a porous material, than by
porcelain, and it was prone to crack when it had to endure large temperature differences. If the glaze crackled, the material underneath became unsealed, and the water caused it to crumble.

SIMILAR EXAMPLES
A smaller, but comparable modeled and decorated teapot is in the Kunstmuseum, The Hague (inv. no. 1059828).