- Designer: Richard William Binns
- Modeler: James Hadley
- Manufacturer: Worcester Royal Porcelain Company
Double-Sided Teapot
1882
Physical Qualities
Porcelain, 6 1/4 x 7 x 3 1/4 in. (15.9 x 17.8 x 8.3 cm.)
Credit Line
Decorative Arts Acquisitions Endowment established by The Friends of the American Wing; and purchase with exchange funds from Gift of Anna Dorsey Cooke in Loving Memory of her Sister, Elsie Dorsey, and Gift of John Beverley Riggs
Object Number
2006.38
This double-sided teapot comments on changing gender norms in 19th-century England. The figures appear to be a man and woman, but they share a body, features, and gestures. An inscription underneath the teapot—“Fearful Consequences Through the Laws of Natural Selection and Evolution of Living Up to One’s Teapot”—uses the witty writing style of poet Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) to reveal that the design mocks rigid gender roles found in both fashionable society and scientist Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) evolutionary theories.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2006; Margot Johnson, New York
"T 4 2." Stylelist Home (blog), 12 27, 2011. http://www.stylelist.com/david-park-curry/tea-for-two_b_1124388.html (accessed March 13, 2012).
Inscribed: Inscribed, underside: "Fearful consequences through the Laws of Natural Selection and Evolution of living up to one's teapot"
Markings: Firm's mark for 1882 on underside
On View: American Wing Second Floor, Scott 05B/Case 1
