Antique Yixing Tea Pot With Famille Rose Enamels

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Collecting Yixing teapots has been a lifelong hobby and at this golden years of my life, I can say I … Read more Collecting Yixing teapots has been a lifelong hobby and at this golden years of my life, I can say I have acquired a certain amount of knowledge. Yixing teapots are generally admired for their many designs in form and for the best vessels for making tea. The yixing clay allows the tea to "breathe" and will not be burning hot to the touch. Yixing teapots of old were made solely of clay and there were not that many painted Yixing pots. I suspect competing with the glazed teapots of Jingdezhen, the porcelain center of China could be one o the causes.

I admire this painted teapot mostly because of the skillfully painted design, reminscent of the Southern Song Dynasty landscape paintings of Xia Gui. I find it interesting that the style of this artist can be interpreted on the surfaces of a teapot. So why did the Yixing potters painted their teapots which was quite out of the ordinary. Quite possibly that in the first half of the 18th century when drinking tea became quite a fashionable beverage in Europe, the decorated Yixing teapots were competing with the porcelain teapots with painted enamels from Jingdezhen. The soft pastels of the famille rose enamel glazes were beautiful but could not compete with the porcelain teapots. The production eventually ceased.
Although there are many contemporary copies of this type of decorated Yixing teapots, there's still something about aging colors and crackling of glazes that cannot be duplicated.

Following the established traditions of Yixing teapots, this teapot only has one hole leading to the spout, as compared to the numerous smaller holes in 20th century ones. The three character seal has been recorded in numerous Yixing publications as an early 19th century shop. The dating of this teapot as first half of the 19th century.

Of all the teapots of its kind, I very seldom see ones decorated with a landscape painting. This teapot was purchased from in the 1990's from an antique shop on Hollywood Road, where the antique shops in Hong Kong are located. See less