The final teapot

Several years ago I began browsing in a small shop in my small town, a shop called The Shabby Chic Cottage. The ladies who owned it would acquire items from yard sales or estate sales, refinish them if they needed it, and then resell in their store. They had gorgeous items, everything from art to furniture to ceramic items, rugs linens, and everything in between.

I bought my first vintage bone china teacup there. The pattern from manufacturer Tuscan in Duchess pattern is described at Replacements.com says "Roses, Gray & Cream Bands, Gold Trim". It's fine English bone china, it's delicate, and it's pretty. I was hooked. I wrote about its acquisition here.

That was two years ago and sadly, shortly after, the shop closed. I was sad for the ladies but sad for me too. I had been bitten by a bug and no way to salve it. Then a friend told me of another shop, not as nicely arranged but prices were even better, and it wasn't far from me. I began haunting it and soon acquired over the last two years, 8 more china teacups and 3 more teapots.

As I went along in this quest, I had in mind THE teapot I wanted. I acquired the other three only because I was looking for THE one and they charmed me in the meantime. But in my mind, if you're sipping tea from a fine English bone china teacup, there should be a fine English bone china teapot it came from. And to me, an iconic English teapot is round, white background, with some kind of flowers as a motif. As you can see from my collection, I'm not married to the notion that this kind of teapot is the only kind of pot, as I've collected American and Japanese pots too. But a collection in my opinion would have the iconic English pot.

And it was that very one that escaped me for so long. Here are my teapots so far:

Tetsubin:

Tetsubin, which Wikipedia explains are "Japanese cast-iron kettles with a pouring spout, a lid, and a handle crossing over the top, used for boiling and pouring hot water for drinking purposes, such as for making tea." They are traditionally used to heat water or tea over a charcoal brazier.

Kutani:

The folks at My Tea Ware say, "Kutani is a regional brand known for vibrant colors and intricate patterns of painting on porcelain. Kutani kilns are located in rural part of Ishikawa prefecture by the Japan sea."

This Japanese Kutani crackle porcelain teapot has all-over crazing under the clear glaze for a crackle design. The transfer design is an iris and bird motif with gold leaf on both sides and on the lid, with a bamboo or rattan handle. The color is an ivory or cream color. Kutani porcelains are characterized by their elaborate picture decorations in thick gold, red, blue and some other colors. In latter years I understand that these decorations were no longer hand painted but usually transferred by decal.

I am unsure of the date of the piece but it's likely late 1970s, early 1980s. This teapot and cup are not vintage but are extremely functional. The pot is the perfect size for three or four cups, it keeps the tea hot, and the design is growing on me more and more. It's the most useful and functional of all the teapots I own.

American: Hall

Due to the style of backstamp, the teapot was likely made in between 1915-1929. I think. It's so cool to think this pot is a hundred years old. There's a reason it looks so good for its age. According to eBay Hall teapot collecting tips,

"The innovative heir to The Hall China Company, Robert Taggart Hall, sought to devise a way to bring back the single-fire method, which was prominent during the Ming Dynasty. At the time, pottery producers used a two-step firing process, with the first to harden the piece and second to set the glaze. Working with the company's ceramic engineers and chemists, Hall and his team created a new glaze recipe for the single-fire process. The new process allowed for many vivid new colors, which were previously unseen, in United States pottery manufacture."

This firing process keeps the pot looking new, it doesn't craze.

Whittard: English

Here is the Whittard Clipper I received as a gift. It's an English pot. The ridge along the bottom is so that the pot would nest into a specially made pairing of a teacup. I broke the cup. The little 2-cup pot stands alone now. Whittard is an English company founded in 1886. My pot, however, is new.

At The Special Store the other day I found another iconic teapot, this one is American. It's a Homer Laughlin, maker of the famous Fiesta ware and Riviera ware. This line is called Eggshell, and being thinner, it was a departure from the thicker and sturdier ware like the Fiesta introduced in the late 1920s.

The teapot I found was a mid-century style pot in Eggshell, Cavalier style and Spring Song pattern. It was actively sold between 1952-1959. SO mid-century! It's large, the largest pot I own. I really like mid-century modern styles, as long as the motifs aren't overdone with the outer space patterns of galaxies and stars and stuff.

cute decoration atop the finial

So I needed one more English pot, the iconic one I'd had in mind as the ideal. It would be made by a good manufacturer, white background, flower motif. Then I saw the photo the store had posted, I thought, 'Wow! PERFECT!'

When I got to the store it was perfect, with one issue. It is a mini-teapot, a 1-cup. It holds 8 ounces. It's cute and lovely and charming and I bought it immediately. It is a Sadler mini-pot, Rosebud swirl pattern, gold edging. I had not known that Sadler teapots are highly collectible, and highly thought of in the China world. I just thought it was cute.

This completes the teapot collecting, and the teacup collecting too. I now have two American teapots, two English, and two Japanese pots. For cups, I have 9.

--Limoges C. Ahrenfeldt, (French) consomme cup, 1894-1930
--Made in Occupied Japan, (Japanese) Rose pattern, 1945-1952,
--Tuscan, (British) Duchess pattern, 1947-1965,
--Syracuse China (American) Federal Shape, pattern, 1949-1970,
--Vernonware, (American) Raffia pattern, made in 1953-54,
--Noritake, (Japanese) Stanton pattern, made between 1953-1961,
--Noritake, (Japanese) Glenrose, 1951-1957,
--Fine China of Japan, Platinum Wheat pattern, dates unknown but sometime mid-century,
--Aynsley, Louis XV pattern, post 1960.

I love the shape of the Raffia small pitcher. It is exquisite.

At the bottom of the Noritake Stanton cup there's a bouquet of flowers

I think the Duchess is my favorite

Corner View: Collections

Jane at Spain Daily has a weekly theme upon which we all write from our corner of the world. It is called Corner View and this week's theme is "Collections." Please be sure to check out her entry and the links to all the others!

I am a failure at collecting things. I think it's because I am ambivalent about the whole enterprise. I've tried my hand at several collections. Richard Brautigan books was a favorite collection-hunting item for a long while. His books are out of print and the older ones are truly rare finds. I haunted bookstores and spent hours browsing with an eye to getting that next one in the list. I found one in Confederate Books in Quito Ecuador of all places. Though not surprisingly because Quito is a good hippie hangout place and Brautigan is a great ex-hippie. I found a bunch more at Mandala Books in Daytona Beach, a super-duper old bookstore, which unfortunately closed two weeks ago after thirty years of happy dusty book stacks near the beach. Visiting City Lights Books in Brautigan's old stomping grounds was a thrill, but being the epicenter for Beats and their first generation offspring such as Brautigan, all their books were of course scooped up, and I found nothing there except lost history.

I reached about 80% of all the Brautigan books I'd ever hoped to find, and I read them all. I re-read them and then I looked at them a lot. Then, just as suddenly, the urge was gone and I gave them all away to a very happy ex-hippie.

Next I tried my hand at rare books. I having attended the 1999 Paper and Book Intensive at Haystack Mountain in Maine, and I learned how to work with leather, gild edges, marble paper, and tree calf, I was all about the old book. At a rare and antique book show in Portland I found the famed naturalist and illustrator George Sowerby's "Popular British Conchology" and Mary Roberts' "The Mollusca." I was collecting shells then and the books seemed like a natural fit overlapping several of my hobbies. I also found a wonderful example of a tree-calf covered book in Scott's Poems and the best part was that I actually like the contents of the book as well as the exterior adornment, lol.

 Far above, two inside hand-marbled covers from Conchology and Mollusca. Above, Scott's Poems with tree calf cover. But alas, collecting those three rare books was the extent of my foray into the rare books world. It's a very expensive hobby. As for the shells, I had assiduously collected them from every sea I visited, and for a while, there were a lot of oceans to dip my toe into. I lived on a sailboat and when I wasn't on the boat I was traveling by any other means to every ocean I could find. I've collected from the North Sea above Scotland, Red Bay near Labrador, Adriatic, Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, River Thames, Bahamian Sea...shells were a great way to remember where I'd been, were small enough to tuck in a pocket and not have to declare duty on, and were worthy of study later. I cataloged them examined them, learned about them, and admired them. Then I gave them all away to kids who were interested.

As a kid, I loved to eat pastina with broth my Nonnie gave me from a pink, cunningly designed bowl that was as pleasing to my eye as the food was to my tummy. When I grew up I determined to find those same bowls and get me a few. Turns out, they were original Fiestaware, and were not only hard to find, but expensive. Why do I have to go for the expensive collections? Anyway, I did search for a few years and occasionally I bought one or two dishes and bowls when they crossed my path. In the end I had quite a nice collection of saucers, mugs, bowls and plates, all in those vibrant colors Fiesta was so famous for. Then just as abruptly, I gave them all away, except for the mugs, which I had forgotten about and had left in the cupboard.

 

 I guess the upshot is, if you want to have a real nice collection, follow me around. As I throw off ballast you might get lucky.