This teapot is decorated with Chinese and Japanese-inspired floral sprays and ‘starburst’ motifs. The use of black enamels for painting part of the flowers and ‘starburst’ motifs is unusual for English porcelain designs. Chinese porcelain decoration, which featured black enamel in place of underglaze blue, may have served as the inspiration for this pattern which was mainly used on tea wares.A full tea service by the late 1760s would have comprised at least 40 pieces. Apart from multiple tea and coffee cups with matching saucers, other standard items included a teapot, sugar bowl, milk jug as well as a slop bowl (into which the dregs from tea and coffee cups were emptied). The teapot is of a standard form produced at Worcester.The shapes of Worcester tea wares tended to be quite limited. Worcester tea wares could withstand hot liquids better than other wares and this advantage reduced the need for the factory to continuously change its product line.
