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Pineapple Teapot
Production: Unidentified Staffordshire Pottery
Cream earthenware, moulded in imitation of a pineapple, and decorated wth green and yellow lead-glazes
Cream earthenware, moulded , and decorated with green and yellow lead-glazes. The pear-shaped pot has a scroll handle with a thumb rest at the top, and a spout which is angular at the bottom and curved at the top. There are five irregularly pierced holes in the wall behind the spout. The domed cover has an air vent, and a capstan-shaped knob with a flat circular top edged with spiky leaves. The top is attached to the body by a metal chain. The lower part of the body, the spout, and the area below the handle have spiky leaves, in relief coloured green, and the handle and knob are also green. The upper part of the body and cover have pineapple scales in relief coloured yellow.
History note: John W. Ford collection, Enfield, Middlesex; sold, second part, Sotheby's, 22 May 1908, lot 49 sold to Mr Stoner for £6 5s. 0d.; purchased from Mr Stoner for £10 2s. 6d, on 25 May, 1908 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge
Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest
Height: 14.8 cm
Length: 16.8 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr
18th Century, third quarter#
George II
George III
Circa
1755
CE
-
1766
CE
An interesting feature of this teapot is that it is pear-shaped rather than pineapple-shaped.
Label text from the exhibition ‘Feast and Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800’, on display at The Fitzwilliam Museum from 26 November 2019 until 31 August 2020: For some, the supreme artificiality of the home-grown British pineapple caused distrust and disapproval. In Tobias Smollett’s 1751 comic novel, Peregrine Pickle, Mrs Grizzle observed that she could never eat pineapples because they were “altogether unnatural productions, extorted by the force of artificial fire out of filthy manure”. However, pineapple mania seized the popular imagination, and many ceramic factories responded by producing novelty tableware in the shape of pineapples, such as this teapot in ‘ananas form’. In the 1750s, tea was still an expensive luxury, and hence this pot’s small size and limited capacity. It was probably acquired by a fashionable woman with a sense of humour who, unlike Mrs Grizzle, was a fan of pineapples, and who may even have grown some herself.
Decoration composed of lead-glaze ( green and yellow)
cream Earthenware
Moulding
: Cream earthenware, moulded, and decorated with green and yellow lead-glazes
Lead-glazing
Accession number: C.707 & A-1928
Primary reference Number: 75872
Old object number: 2853
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
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IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Pineapple Teapot" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/75872 Accessed: 2024-11-22 01:17:10
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/75872
|title=Pineapple Teapot
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-22 01:17:10|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-75872
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa30/C_707_26A_1928_1_201407_kly25_mas.jpg"
alt="Pineapple Teapot"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Pineapple Teapot</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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