February ’22

Teapot

The object is a blue-and-white exportware, 18^th century Qing Dynasty porcelain teapot with a blue floral motif underglaze painting from the Oriental Museum. The object is comprised of two pieces: the body of the pot, and the lid. There is a hole in the lid of the teapot for steam ventilation. The teapot and the lid visually and physically do not match. The lid has been made to fit the rim of the teapot by the use of fabric tape wrapped around the base of the lid. The blue floral designs also do not match, and the material of the two are clearly different. When tapped, the teapot emits a clear ringing tone distinctive of porcelain, while the sound the lid emits when tapped is very different.

According to Oriental Museum documentation, the underglaze motifs on the teapot comprise both flowers and fruits, including finger citrons, chrysanthemums, and other small flowers. Vine trellises and floral sprays are included on the spout and handle. There are butterfly wings bracketing where the handle joins the teapot.

Condition

• There are several areas of staining around the broken handle
• The teapot has a layer of dust on the surface, and areas of dirt around the rim
• The edge of the spout is chipped
• The handle has completely detached from the body
• There’s evidence of old adhesive on the break edges of the handle, suggesting a previous repair.
• There is a piece of fabric tape wound around the flange
• The rim of the lid has chipped in several places
• There is significant staining on the underside of the lid.

Conservation

All components of the teapot were cleaned using cotton wool swabs with an appropriate solution containing surfactant in order to remove dust and dirt. This also removed some of the discolouration from around the handle. The teapot was then swabbed using ethanol to remove the surfactant residue, and this was found to also remove the remainder of the discolouration around the handle.

At the request of the Oriental Museum the fabric tape wrapped around the flange of the lid was removed using a scalpel. The tape was extremely brittle, and flaked considerably during removal. Remains of the tape were placed into a small finds bag should there be any desire for future analysis / research.

Although one section of the previously repaired handle had become detached, a second piece of the previously repaired handle remained in place. However the adhesive had discoloured significantly and the decision was made to remove this before the entire handle was reattached. The old repair required considerable soaking in order to soften the old adhesive; this was achieved by creating a poultice using cotton wool and a suitable solvent. Once the old adhesive had been sufficiently softened, the join came down easily.

Following removal, all break edges of the handle were cleaned using cotton wool swabs with an appropriate solution containing surfactant in order to remove dirt and some of the discoloured adhesive. As the cleaning solution did not remove all of the old adhesive the break edges were also mechanically cleaned to ensure no previous adhesive remained. As the old adhesive had left a significant amount of staining on the break edges, they were treated using laponite, which successfully removed the majority of the staining and made the handle visually more aesthetically pleasing.

Finally, the handle was reattached using a suitable adhesive, applied carefully using a paintbrush. Electrical tape was applied across the joins in order to help strengthen the bond between the handle pieces.

Stay tuned for next month’s object!