3-015-862 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Pair Of Tea Canisters With Case, 1769/70. These eighteenth-century British canisters are decorated with scenes of women playing stringed instruments or arranging flowers under parasols and pagoda canopies—details that refer to tea’s origins in the Far East. The two containers differ slightly in size. One of them may have been used to store sugar, an increasingly popular addition to tea as the century progressed. The mahogany case is fitted with a lock, demonstrating the high value placed on tea at the time.