Teapot c. 1760

Curator: Looking at this petite Teapot, created around 1760 by the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company, don’t you just want to steep yourself in its history? It’s porcelain, of course, and absolutely brimming with Rococo flourishes, and what the 18th century would have understood as "orientalism". Editor: It makes me think of tea parties gone wonderfully wrong. The crabs at the bottom seem to be plotting a takeover. Curator: Plotting perhaps a fashionable heist! Remember the era. Tea was valuable, almost contraband in some circles, so the vessel holding it would also become this emblem of power and intrigue. Editor: And power manifested, not just symbolically, but practically, through social rituals of drinking tea and gathering around it, is what you're suggesting? It’s not merely about the value of the leaves or the pot itself, but in dictating hierarchies. I imagine it seated squarely at the center of attention. It feels like such a bold statement! Curator: Absolutely! And that crest? A declaration! Someone wanted everyone to know who owned this pot, who was hosting, who held the secrets within those leaves! Look how confidently the rest of its features have been constructed, too, each painted stroke contributing to the social fabric in which the work lived and performed. Editor: The painter's eye doesn't get lost in all those demands, though; I feel a warmth there, not merely because I am naturally imagining hot tea being poured from it. I want to hold it in my hands and somehow hear what it's saying beyond all these readings. Curator: Yes, me too! Its intimacy can draw you in and before you realize it, you're being lectured about economics, but whispered the entire time, across two centuries, from porcelain to our own fingertips. Editor: What a wonderfully strange encounter to be caught within, though. Curator: Agreed. We will just have to continue our delightful encounter then, hopefully brewing further thoughts over time.