Kettle

The tea kettle was made in the famous English ceramics factory Wedgwood in Burslem, Staffordshire. The factory belonged to Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) in the second half of the 18th c. The kettle is made of unglazed stoneware clay, coloured blue. Products from such coloured stoneware clay were introduced into ceramics production by Josiah Wedgwood. They were decorated with white reliefs with classicist figural and ornamental motifs. On the walls and lid, the kettle is decorated with white reliefs from the Domestic Employment series after the design by Lady Elizabeth Templetown. She supplied the Wedgwood company with ceramics decoration designs in the form of drawings or paper cut-out models. These designs were modelled by William Hackwood (Wedgwood. Ceramika XVIII-XX wieku, ed. W. Załęska, Warsaw 2002, pp. 210, 219-220). The reliefs on the walls of the teapot show, on one side, a woman sitting on a chair teaching a boy to read and on the other, a sewing woman sitting by a tree trunk next to a kneeling little girl with scissors. The ornament is complemented by tree trunks and butterflies. The spout and lid of the kettle are decorated with white ornamental reliefs. The handle and spout are grooved and decorated with acanthus leaves at the base. The kettle should be dated 1785-1790. Barbara Trojnar