Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Lotus on porcelain

In my latest video, I introduce all the novelties and novel teas I have added to my boutique's selection since the start of the summer break. 

There were so many new items that I wanted to address them all in this new format. Writing product descriptions is not much fun, so I hope that a video can be a little bit more entertaining and interesting. In this video, I also answer the link between the pictures of lotus flowers I post and tea.
The direct link is that among the new tea ware are 2 lotus teapots: a blue on white teapot
and this polychrome teapot below. However, I forgot to mention something quite important about these new products in the English video. They are not so new, but were made around 20 years ago by my Taiwanese porcelain workshop. And the reason that I feature them now, in particular, is because this product line of hand painted porcelain ware is slowly but surely selling out. And, as is often the case, you only realize that something is special when it's about to disappear!

These wares are symbolic for an era and a philosophy. It was the era of new affluence when people had more time and money to spend on tea. And the philosophy was to make the beauty of a hand painted flower or landscape affordable and available to a large public without turning it into kitsch. The price was set higher than a similar plain ware, but not that much higher. Unlike Meissen or other luxury porcelain brands that charge a small fortune for their works, because they require a lot of detailed work, these porcelains were painted in large numbers with free brush strokes, like in ancient times. This is obvious when you compare these 2 teapots. 
Unfortunately, these wares didn't find a large market and the painters were let go long time ago. This means that what sells are the decorations that are reproduced by machines cheaply. Otherwise, if you want something painted by an artist, it will be priced accordingly as a piece of art. 
So, let's enjoy the flowers while we can.
Or hope that new seeds will be planted and flourish in the future.

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