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“FEARFUL CONSEQUENCES . . . OF LIVING UP TO ONE'S TEAPOT”: MEN, WOMEN, AND “CULTCHAH” IN THE ENGLISH AESTHETIC MOVEMENT c. 1870–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Anne Anderson
Anne Anderson*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter and the Huntington Library
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Extract

The Aesthetic or “Patience” teapot is renowned as the ultimate parody of Aesthetic sensibilities. Composed of the head and torso of a male and female back-to-back dressed in the “greenery-yallery of the Grosvenor Gallery,” with puce hats and fashionable Pre-Raphaelite red hair, the teapot was designed by James Hadley (1838–1903) for the Royal Worcester manufactory following the success of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's operetta Patience in 1881. Bearing on its base the inscription, “Fearful consequences through the laws of Natural Selection and Evolution of living up to one's teapot,” the vessel took a swipe at Darwin's theories of evolution, as well as Oscar Wilde's famous aphorism. This teapot is certainly not “fit for its purpose,” defying “form must follow function”; rather it is a whim of fashion, novel but transitory. Recognized as a “limited edition” and expensive, its function being primarily for show rather than use, it marks the appearance of the modern “collectable,” in effect a souvenir of Aestheticism and now seen to commemorate its apogee. Yet although loaded with aesthetic signifiers – sunflowers, lilies and gender-bending – no scholar has attempted to unwrap the teapot's meaning, in terms of the identification of china and tea with “life-style aestheticism” (Figure 15).

Type
Work in Progress
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 219 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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