Cups, Saucers and Teapots

“Why is it,” I asked, “that the tea-set in the corner is only half the price of any other one in the shop?”

“Oh?” said the shop assistant in a superior fashion, “that plain one is only fit for kitchen-ware. Now here is a really nice one, inlaid gold on it too, quite exclusive …”

And so I was borne off from the dark corner with the attractive olive green tea-set (“but of course only fit for kitchen-ware, my dear”) into a wild jungle of tea-sets for the dining-room, tea-sets for the morning tray, tea-sets for social afternoons, tea-sets for the display cabinet, all respectably adorned with gold paint, rosebuds, garden scenes, blue birds wildly chasing each other. None of them could possibly be confused with the naked cinderella in the corner. At each category the price, the vulgarity, the sheer impossibility of the tea-sets mounted, so that the cup and saucer fit for that holy of holies, the china cabinet, was so fluted round the brim, so wiggly round the handle, so inlaid and overlaid with gold paint, so narrow waisted, and so genteelly small withal, that the idea of drinking from it filled me with nervous apprehension—but then, of course, one would not drink, one would sip, sip, sip.

It is no wonder really that we cannot choose good pictures for our Art Gallery, that we cannot build an unpretentious theatre, and that we are such an easy market for chromium and veneer, when we are unable to distinguish between beauty and ugliness in a tea cup.

Good taste is an individual affair. We should not blindly follow the judgment of the critic, but neither should we with equal blindness follow the judgment of our neighbours. It is essential that we clear our minds and eyes of what is the accepted thing. Why not have a plain tea cup in the dining room? If it has grace and good proportion it is as much at home in the dining room as in the kitchen.

The first thing to consider in, say, a cup and saucer and a teapot is “fitness for purpose.” It is strange that in such a scientific age we have ceased to think in terms of technical function about many everyday things. What is the conventional rather than what is the most suitable has too often warped judgment.

A good tea cup and saucer should be able to pass certainly purely functional tests.

The cup must be easy to hold; that means a round, open handle devoid of wiggles and frills, and not so small that it is impossible for the little finger to do anything but jut awkwardly outward.

Most of us like tea; therefore the cup should not be too small. There is a popular misconception that only the small cup is elegant enough for afternoon tea parties, but elegance comes from line and form, size has little to do with it. Of course, there is no need for a tea cup to look like a tramper's mug, but there is a satisfactory mean. The cup illustrated holds a quarter of a pint. The slight curve of the sides increases its capacity without adding to the height and also gives it a graceful line.

Most of us like our tea to keep hot while we drink it. This means that there should not be too great an increase in width between the top and bottom of the cup. Tea cups shaped like a coupe dish, while often attractive to look at, very quickly let tea cool.

The cup should be pleasant to drink from

The cup should be pleasant to drink from, and a smooth surface round the brim feels better to the lips than a fluted one. Too much “overhang” is also unpleasant; it is difficult to clean and is easily chipped.

Finally the cup must look and be at ease on its saucer. Narrow-waisted cups always appear to be precariously perched on their saucers. The wide-bottomed cup illustrated sits comfortably, and cup and saucer would even balance on a knee.

The saucer is not so important functionally, but the proportion of height of cup to depth and width of saucer should be correct. I do not think there is any need to bother about rules, the eye when it is used is sufficient judge. It is important that the cup and saucer should look as though they belong to each other. There is, for instance, a brand of plain New Zealand cups and saucers of which the cup is functionally good, but its height is out of all proportion to the width and depth of the saucer with the result that the cup looks top-heavy. A cup and saucer should be designed as a unit.

A good teapot should also be able to stand up to this spring-cleaning process.

The most important thing about a teapot is that it should pour well—it should also look as if it pours page 5

Teapot designed by Victor Skellern combines good functional appearance with graceful simplicity of line and right proportion; nor is it marred, as many otherwise good round teapots often are, by having a square handle. Handle, spout, and lid are harmonious with the body, and do not lok like excrescences spouting awkwardly from the pot.

well. I have had no experience with the racing-car teapot, but it is extremely doubtful if it is good in this respect.

If the teapot is a metal one it is essential that the handle and knob on the lid should be of some heat-resisting material. How many women, men too probably, have frantically rummaged for a hanky or stoically grasped the piping hot handle of the conventional silver-plated restaurant teapot? There is nothing distasteful about a black ebony handle and knob on a metal teapot and it is infinitely preferable to a burnt hand or one of those hideous little knitted teapot holders.

Teapots are not ungainly things, and there is really no need for one to apologize for its shape by trying to look like a rose, a swan, an old English cottage, or a racing car. The camouflage is not only unnecessary but basically wrong. The object in the corner is satisfactory neither as a teapot nor as a model racing car. It is an abortion, an offence both to good design and to good taste. Another unfortunate tendency influencing the design of silver-plated teapots in particular, results, from the belief that any object made in the twentieth century must be streamlined. It is necessary that cars, ships, and aeroplanes should offer as little wind resistance as possible, but there is no need, in fact, it is a mistaken idea of purpose, to design tea-waggons, armchairs, and teapots as though they too had to hurtle through space.

“Fitness for purpose” then can place with perfect propriety the plain cup and saucer or teapot in the dining room. Ease in handling, grace and simplicity of form and good proportion are the most important attributes of either. It is possible, however, for something else to be included which although not functionally necessary in the purely technical sense can add beauty and joy to the design. Many people of good sense are suspicious of ornament and rightly so; it is a healthy reaction both to the extravagance of the nineteenth century and to the flamboyance of the twentieth. Good taste has become associated with the plain and the simple—both these things can be good, but simplicity need not imply nakedness, and elegance can be enhanced not destroyed by good decoration. But just as cup and saucer and teapot must fit the purpose for which they are designed so should their decoration fit their shape. Most decoration on the tea-sets we see in New Zealand shop windows seems to have been designed on the principle that only by crowding on as much gold paint and as many rosebuds as possible—even the

The absurdity and vulgarity of the “racing-car” and “cottage” teapots need no comment.

inside of the cup is not to be neglected—can the manufacturer ensure against the odious stigma of kitchen-ware. All decoration must have breathing space, in fact, it could possibly be defined as the arrangement of space. The Chinese knew how to achieve beauty with a single line. It is we Westerners, afraid of space as we are of stillness, who use decoration to cover up blanks rather than to enhance form. The decoration on the Victor Skellern teapot is good but not perfect. The shape of the teapot has been considered and the pattern is in harmony with its mouldings. Nor is the design crowded by too much decoration—it is a satisfactory balance of space and pattern. The weakness of the decoration is the number of unrelated bands round the handle and in particular delineating unnecessarily the join of the spout. The teapot though would be a welcome relief amid the vulgar mediocrity of those that we are accustomed to use and display.

Well-designed cups and saucers and teapots are being made but New Zealanders see them generally as illustrations in overseas magazines, seldom in our own shop windows. Buyers for the larger firms may be blamed, though it seems likely that they buy only what they know will sell. As with so many other examples of bad taste in this country “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Photo reproduced by courtesy of the Council of Industrial Design