#tea table

Oil on canvas , 60 x 81 cm.

--- Type: Tea and Coffee service (with custom table) Designer/Manufacturer: Carlo Bugatti [X] Region: Turin, Italy Time period: 1907

19th Century rococo revival Swedish birch tea table

Tea table with an open window at the time of dawn.

Bernard Dunstan (1920-2017)

In the 18th century, tea was an expensive commodity, as were the items shown here related to its consumption: the tea table, silver and porcelain. A bitter drink, it was sweetened with sugar, produced in the British colonies in the Caribbean with the labour of enslaved African people. The caddy (tea box) is shown in the foreground. Its contents were normally kept locked by the lady of the household, who is shown dispensing the precious leaves. Tea drinking demonstrated wealth, domesticity and genteel informality. In the 18th century, it came to epitomise civilised behaviour for white Europeans.