Tea caddy with “The Tea Party” and “The Shepherd”

Robert Hancock|Josiah Wedgwood

1770–75 · Creamware; transfer printed · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

This tea caddy represents one of Wedgwood’s most popular designs known as The Tea Party, based on a print by Robert Hancock first published in a pattern book in 1756. Transfer printing refers to a technique developed around 1752 of transferring an engraved design directly onto the ceramic object, thereby allowing greater consistency, accuracy, and legibility in firing decorated wares. On one side of this caddy, a black servant stands next to a couple seated on a bench enjoying their tea al fresco. The reverse side shows a seated shepherd tending his flock. For eighteenth-century consumers, this popular design celebrated the twin pleasures of tea drinking and bucolic landscapes enjoyed by the English gentility. Today, the caddy’s subject matter also evokes the ties that bound the trade routes bringing tea and sugar into England with the exploitative mechanisms of slavery.

Artist

Robert Hancock|Josiah Wedgwood

Date

1770–75

Medium

Creamware; transfer printed

Culture

British, Etruria, Staffordshire

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of the Starr and Wolfe Family, 2018