Every now and then when I’m at an auction, some items on a table seem to just will me to stop. Maybe it’s a shape. Or a color. Or an unusual collection of “something.”
Recently, it was a collection: a small group of novelty porcelain teapots, about a dozen of them, in all kinds of intricate shapes. Cute.
I don’t buy much cute, so I wasn’t going to bid on them. But I do like to hang around cute items and handle them long enough to let out a good chuckle or produce a smile. These things just make you feel good, so why don’t I buy them? Maybe it would be nice having one or two in my house, there waiting to elicit the same response I give them at auction, forcing me to just stop. A lovely thought, but …
As I looked over the teapots, I checked under the bottom of each for a maker’s name and found two: Paul Cardew and Tony Carter.
Since I don’t collect teapots, the names were both new to me. When I got home, I Googled them and found out that they were British designers.
They were among a large group of artists who designed novelty teapots – including Andy Titcomb, who started out with Cardew before setting up his own shop; Gary Seymour, the Teapottery – and traditional vessels – the James Sadler company and Caldonia Pottery, both of which make the earthenware “Brown Betty” teapots.
It seems that these whimsical teapots are very collectible. Both the Cardew and Carter websites noted that the teapots were also functional and made for the kitchen.
Cardew seems to have a very large following. He creates the designs and has them made in China, according to his website, where he sells mugs, coasters, glasses, espresso cups, trivets, money box, cookie tray, bowls, cake stands. His products are usually made in large editions.
He began fashioning his teapots in 1975, showing them off at the Birmingham (England) Spring Fair. Before then, Cardew had been commissioned to design brooches for Harrods department store in London and piggy children’s banks for a bank, according to his website.
His earliest teapots were made by Sunshine Ceramics, the company he formed in 1975; he started Cardew Design in 1991. Disney picked him as one of the people to create products based on its movie “Fantasia 2000.”
Back in 2003, Cardew created an edition of 30 teapots featuring three positions from the Indian sex manual Kama Sutra. They showed a man and woman in platinum and 18-karat gold leaf. The teapots were not pornographic, but erotic, a Cardew Design official said at the time.
Tony Carter’s teapots, according to his website, are not mass-produced, with each made and painted by hand and no two alike. Carter and his wife only make teapots and they have been doing it for about 30 years in Debenham, Suffolk, England.
On his website, Cardew sells his teapots at the reasonable price of $20 to $66, all in the traditional pot-belly shape with designs. I found another website that sold them for $32 to $295.
I found 11 pages of listings for Cardew products on eBay, most of which did not sell, including the teapots. A Royal Doulton Pretty Ladies, though, sold for $999. One decorated with small teapots went for $100.
Carter’s teapots – of which I found only a few on eBay – were not selling well at all, either.
As for the teapots at the auction, the entire lot went for $25. I hope there were some winners in there.
Please let me know if you are looking to sell the teapots. I am interested in them. Thank you
Hi. I didn’t buy the teapots. I just wrote about them because I thought they were lovely. You may be able to find some on eBay or by Googling.
Sherry Howard