CHRISTOPHER BENFEY: This is one of the most exciting little pots in the world. This is not just one more piece of porcelain. This is the real deal.

My name is Christopher Benfey, I’m a cultural critic with a special interest in ceramic history.

If you walk around the teapot, it’s almost like you’re walking around a globe. On one side you’re in South Carolina, palmetto trees and sandhill cranes and there’s a little river with a curved boat.Then you walk around the teapot and suddenly, you’re in China.

This was found at a sale in England, where in 2016, when it was recognized that this is the first example of North American porcelain.

Porcelain was the holy grail of pottery making, especially in the 18th century. It was known as 'white gold’. The English potters are desperately trying to figure out how to make porcelain.And they know it has something to do with the clays. And weirdly, amazingly, the English potters found the clay in Cherokee towns in what is now North Carolina.

John Bartlam thought, “I’m going to cut out the middle man. I can make the pottery here in South Carolina with North American clays and I can sell it to North American colonists directly.”

Our teapot comes from a moment when the serving of food and drink was no longer just a way to sustain people, but to celebrate and show off and introduce some aesthetic appreciation. The tea party became an essential part of civilized life in settlements where the dangerous outback begins about a mile away. This teapot says ”We have refined tastes, we’re civilized, we know what we’re doing. Welcome.”