Chinese globular form porcelain teapot with underglaze decoration featuring a kingfisher and pink peonies in the famille rose palette. This popular form was made for export to North America and Europe in the mid 1700s.
Teapot measures 5-1/2″ high and 7-3/4″ wide, from tip of spout to end of handle.
After the original porcelain loop handle broke off, a tinker formed a replacement using bronze covered in woven rattan. I have many examples of wrapped handles on teapots, each with slight variations. I am researching the different decorative patterns used and hope to identify the distinctions unique to each maker.
This globular teapot from the same period shows what the handle on my piece would have looked like before it broke off.
Photo courtesy of LiveAuctioneers
Tags: Chinese, globular, metal handle, porcelain, rattan
Simply wonderful. Thanks for all the posts. Greatly enjoyed.
the replacement seems to be much more elegant than the original.
The bronze handle’s artfully woven cover seems somehow to suggest a trellis, and compliments those peonies, roses, and watchful kingfisher. Lovely in its simplicity.
it is so understood that the most utilised object once damaged should be repaired and put back into service, a tea pot especially!
. . . love your work Andy and such a nice find . . . can live in out tea collection any day!
mal E + Bh (downunder)
What an unusual subject for this Chinese tea pot. Naively, I thought that the Kingfisher was purely an European bird but how wrong was I?. Its genus is found in Asia and Africa. Next time I see one of these iridescent little birds diving for a fish, I shall consider its global cousins and think of your tea pot!