Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: The Burslem Teapot, 1896

The Victoria & Albert Museum


The English teapot has long served as a successful communication device. Not only did the choice of teapot speak of a household's tastes, interests and status, the designers and manufacturers of teapots were afforded great opportunities for imagination and the showcasing of their strengths and skills.

Teapots could take any form from the traditional and simple to the opulently painted and gilded to even the figural--exotic animals and people. The latter examples abandoned convention, and even practicality, but satisfied both creator and owner and provided hours of proud discussion by both parties.

This elegant teapot plays with tradition by introducing a fanciful and complex shape. Such a shape showed the designer's skill and sense of style, but aldo provided complications in applying a pattern. The individual responsible for the transfer printed pattern certainly rose to the occasion.

This pot was made in India expressly for import to England by the Burgess & Leigh Co. They registered the design in 1896 as a teapot, but its original shape was an exact copy of the form and surface decoration of a multi-color printed biscuit tin registered by Huntley & Palmer.

A lawsuit was unavoidable.

The result--Burgess & Leigh adapted their teapot to this monochrome version. The scene is still similar to that of the biscuit tin--an Indian scene, with an elephant, British and Indian people and hunting dogs. The design was quite popular as Britain approached Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and images of the Indian part of the Empire were very fashionable.



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