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For quality antiques visit www.TeaAntiques.comAntique of the month - Elegance and Charm from Worcester c1770
More details of this item and other tea related antiques can be found by
visiting my web site at www.TeaAntiques.com. BATH - Victoria Art Gallery
There is a delightful Worcester covered round sugar box and cover displayed with flower finial, much in the same style as one featured as antique of the month in December’s Tea Clipper newsletter.
This is certainly a very pleasing, well displayed and informative exhibition and one I would strongly recommend for the lover of tea equipage and eighteenth century porcelain.
Victoria Art Gallery victoria_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk Tea and Wine unite! c1820-30
I was rather surprised and delighted when I opened the box to discover that
it had its original tin fittings, which related to both wine and tea – this
was, in fact, a combined Tea Poy and Wine Cooler!
Tea Room of the MonthThe reason that I was in Bath and came across the delight of the Tea exhibition in the Victoria Art Gallery mentioned above was that I was visiting my favourite city in England on the occasion of my birthday.
A very special treat was to be able to enjoy tea from an eighteenth century Worcester shanked tea bowl and saucer with blue and gilt decoration that was a beautiful birthday present. I partook of the full afternoon tea as my birthday treat – it was superb and very filling; in fact I had to take the cake home for later consumption! The tea room staff are always willing to offer boxes to customers in which to take home any food they cannot manage to consume – what considerate service!
The Bridge Tea Rooms, c1675 General
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In
January, I was fortunate (on my birthday) to visit my favourite city, the
splendid city of Bath. During the day I visited the Victoria Art Gallery
where I was absolutely delighted to discover an exhibition relating to tea
drinking in the eighteenth century – and another bonus, an extensive
collection of eighteenth century wine glasses.
On
view is a wonderful set of displays relating to tea drinking in England and
China; set in the upstairs art gallery in four square glass cabinets
entitled “Time for Tea”. Each cabinet focuses on a particular area of
tea drinking with regard to porcelain and silver from the eighteenth century. It
also reviews items relating to the drinking of coffee and chocolate.
One
cabinet contains a stunning silver tea urn, which would hold the water for
making tea, this fine example was made by William Townsend of Bath, c1779. 
Also
displayed are many and varied examples of eighteenth century porcelain tea bowls
and saucers from Worcester and Derby factories.
There
are also examples from the Bristol factory, which was the first factory in
Britain to discover how to make porcelain of the same quality as the Chinese
hard paste porcelain. The company started in Plymouth in 1768 and specialised in
the manufacture of very fine tea services for the rich society. Some of the
Bristol tea bowls and saucers have some very pretty and delicate floral patterns
with extremely fine gilding. A few examples also have delicate moulded handles
to the cups.
A
second cabinet displays a large part of a beautiful Worcester tea service
decorated with a pattern known as the “fan”.
The fan shapes being fashioned in underglaze cobalt blue with overglaze red and
green enamel with gilt embellishments – a very striking design. Included in
this set are the standard size teapots but also a few very large teapots and
stands. These large teapots were known as punch kettles, used for the pouring of
punch drinks as well as tea. This service was made at its Worcester factory
between 1760 and 1770 and comprised 43 items. A pair of covered tea vases
The
third cabinet relates to items associates with the taking of Coffee and
Chocolate. A profusion of chocolate and coffee cans are displayed with exquisite
and again varied decorations. Here it explains how the porcelain manufacturer
followed the shapes and designs of coffee pots in silver. A fine George III
baluster coffee pot with rococo embossing, London 1757, is set against similar
shaped pots in porcelain from Worcester. (The coffee pot in silver being very
similar in shape and decoration to 
Finally,
the fourth cabinet is devoted to China and the origins of tea drinking, not only
for pleasure but for health. Chinese porcelain teapots, tea bowls and saucers
are displayed together with small bowls containing actual tea varieties, such as
Formosa Oolong, Genmaicha tea, Gunpowder and Sencha tea. Some of the small
Chinese teapot bodies have applied moulded flowers and foliage painted in
beautifully coloured enamels.
The
museum is currently also displaying the most fantastic collection of 18th
century drinking glasses, rather cramped in display cabinets but stunning to
behold, with an amazing variety of styles from heavy baluster stems, drawn
trumpet shaped, air and opaque twisted stems, faceted stems, bowls with engraved
decoration and enamel painted bowls by the famous “Beilby”.
Museum
Details:
During my
travel to Bath, I purchased a most interesting item of Georgian domestic
furniture. At first sight, this beautiful mahogany sarcophagus shaped box on a
central pedestal stand with shaped quadrafoil base, appeared to be a cellaret or
wine cooler, c1820-30. As a wine cooler, one would expect the inside to be
lead-lined, designed to hold ice in which wine bottles would be stored to keep
them cool in a dining room during dinners. As a cellaret, it would be divided
inside to hold 6-8 bottles of red wine stored in the dining room to bring the
wine to room temperature for consumption during dinner. The other possibility
was that it was a Tea Poy and would open to reveal tea fittings including maybe
two or four fitted tea canisters, tea mixing bowl, sugar box, etc.
There are two rectangular lidded tea boxes for containing green and black tea
positioned either side of a central wine cooling section. The bottom of the wine
cooling section having drain holes and a removable sliding drip tray.
In
this wine cooling section, ice would be placed to keep wines or glasses cold
during a dinner. As the ice melted, the water would drip through and collect in
the tray below. This was indeed a most unusual piece of George IV furniture
uniting my interest in tea and wine drinking antiques – one that I could not
resist buying and sharing with you.
The
other delight of the day was to visit the Bridge Tea Rooms in Bradford on Avon,
in my opinion, one of the best tea rooms in the South of England. It has to be
my favourite place and I reviewed it in the 
Details: