Rare Early Victorian Tea Set. 30 Pieces including Tea Pot. C.1840’s

Impress your guests with this Rare Early Victorian Tea Set. 30 Pieces including Tea Pot. C.1840’s

This elegant tea ware reflects the sophisticated aesthetic of the early 1880’s English porcelain.  There is no backstamp so I can’t tell you the maker but it’s high quality and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it came from a prominent factory of the time such as Minton or Coalport.

Rococo revival influence characterised by its moulded lobed body, elaborate scrollwork and rich, hand applied gilding.  A superb historical representation of early Victorian high quality tea ware.

The fantastic 2-Pint tea pot is in a great antique condition with the exception of a small piece missing from the spout (see photographs).  Most of the other pieces are undamaged as far as I can see with a couple of small exceptions: 

•    the lidded sugar bowl (sucrier) has had a repair to its knob.  This, however, is a very neat repair and I only spotted it when I washed and minutely examined this set; 
•    there is a large slop bowl which has a very small chip; 
•    there is some wear to the some of the gilding inside the cups
 
all of which I have photographed.  I decided these small issues were acceptable in a set this old (180+ years!).

There are more cups than there are saucers and I was tempted to discard some but I changed my mind and have included all the cups that were not damaged within this set.  The larger open bowl cups holding 5 fluid ounces are definitely tea cups.  The smaller cups with their capacity of 4 fluid ounces are perfect coffee cup size.  It occurred to me that unless you wanted to serve more than 9 people at a time, you could use whichever cup would be appropriate for your beverage using the same saucers for whichever cup style you chose to use..

The saucers have no indentation which is not unusual for tea ware of this age.

There is one plate which makes a perfect stand for the tea pot or could be used to serve biscuits or the like.

Set includes the following:

1 x Tea pot (Capacity 2 pints.8½” tall overall)
1 x Milk Jug / Creamer (Capacity ½ Pint.  4” tall overall)
1 x Lidded Coffee Basin / Sucrier (7” tall overall)
10 x Open Bowl Tea Cups ((Capacity 5 fluid ounces. 2¼” deep x 4¼” top rim diameter)
6 x Smaller Tea / Coffee Cups (Capacity 4 fluid ounces.  2½” deep x 3¼ top rim diameter)
9 x Saucers (5¾” diameter)
1 x Plate ((8” Diameter)
1 x Slop Bowl (3” deep x 7” top rim diameter).

This set is going to take a large amount of careful packaging to ensure it arrives at its destination safely.  Hence the higher than usual postage charge.