Terms and conditions of use
Teapot
(c. 1770)
- Medium
- earthenware
- Measurements
- (a-b) 9.3 × 15.8 × 9.7 cm (overall)
- Place/s of Execution
- Leeds, England
- Accession Number
- 2024.344.a-b
- Department
- International Decorative Arts
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Patricia Begg OAM Bequest, 2024
© Public Domain - Gallery location
- 17th & 18th Century Decorative Arts & Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
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Landscape scenes scattered with architectural elements were some of the most pervasive images to reach Europe from Asia from the seventeenth century and provided rich imagery for European fantasies about Asia. Watery, meditative landscapes, interspersed with gazebos, bridges and pavilions, decorated Chinese porcelain and Japanese lacquer wares that were shipped to Europe in great numbers. These scenes, or European imaginings stimulated by them, were soon copied on European porcelain and earthenwares. The fanciful Chinoiserie landscape decorations on this teapot and adjacent coffee cup include pavilions loosely derived from Chinese pagodas, figures fishing from skiffs, strange palm-like trees and a bizarre semicircular scholar’s rock.