Sophie Tea Set (2016)

Inspired by museum collections of historical dining vessels, in particular from the eighteenth century, Louisa Taylor explores the rituals of eating and taking tea as well as the role of tableware in contemporary dining. Her distinctive colour palette is influenced by hand-painted decoration on historical pieces. On investigating such work, Taylor says: ‘I deconstruct each individual colour and match it with glaze. I use the content of the decoration to inform the overall composition of the piece and combine this with honed forms’. She aims to create objects for the home that are not intended to prescribe specific functions, but instead encourage sharing and relaxed eating. Each of Taylor’s pieces is made from porcelain and thrown on the potter’s wheel. She creates components which she then cuts, freely assembles and finishes by hand.

Sophie Tea Set is a conclusion of a research project that Taylor started in 2012 as artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London. The set is an interpretation of an eighteenth-century centrepiece by the Meissen Factory, part of the V&A collection. The decoration and layout of the Meissen tea set informed the overall composition of Taylor’s contemporary assemblage of vessels. The tray on which the tea set is presented has plinths built in to elevate the key components in the tea ceremony and to create a sense of grandeur and occasion.

Sophie Tea Set links strongly to both Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s historic porcelain collection and the 1960s and 1970s tea and coffee services by the Crowan Pottery and Robin Welch, which form part of the studio pottery collection. Sophie Tea Set importantly documents the movement away from Leach style ‘brown’ stoneware to the exploration of a wider range of materials and concerns in contemporary pottery.

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