Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.
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Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.
Winter online exhibition
Made at the Richard Chaffers factory, Liverpool, about 1760
Accession number WAG 2006.13.1a&b
Tea was a novel and expensive luxury in 1700, but by 1800 everyone drank it. It was imported from China together with porcelain for drinking it.
British potters copied Chinese porcelain, and began to make porcelain in England. It was a challenge for potters to make teapots that would stand boiling water without cracking.
In Liverpool three porcelain factories started production in about 1756. Two of them, including Chaffers, were in William Brown Street where the Walker Art Gallery and World Museum are now. Today the factories have gone but you can see examples of porcelain and other decorative arts from all over the world in the Craft and Design gallery at the Walker Art Gallery.
This teapot was purchased in 2005 for the Decorative Art department at National Museums Liverpool.