Tea Canister
This earthenware tea canister is one of the earliest known dated examples of American pottery. Although decorated in the Pennsylvanian German decorative technique of sgraffito, it displays the potter's attempt at emulating the fashionable English, salt-glazed, stoneware tea caddies of the 1740s and 1750s. This redware caddy, however, is much larger than its English prototype and the naive design of the tea plant bears little resemblance to that of the English salt-glazed original.
Artwork Details
- Title: Tea Canister
- Maker: Joseph Smith , active 1760s
- Date: 1769
- Geography: Made in Bucks County, Wrightstown, Pennsylvania, United States
- Culture: American
- Medium: Earthenware; Redware
- Dimensions: H. 7 1/2 in. (19.1 cm)
- Credit Line: Purchase, Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen and Anonymous Gifts, and Friends of the American Wing Fund, 1981
- Object Number: 1981.46
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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