Writes Tristram Hunt, in “The Radical Potter," quoted in "A Transporting and Cozy Biography of a Pottery Pioneer" (NYT).
November 5, 2021
"Helpfully, the fashion for ladies to wear white gloves during the tea service and even bleach their hands porcelain-white with arsenic also increased demand for black-basalt teaware, as the darkness of the basalt highlighted the cleanliness of the hostesses’ wardrobe or the purity of their genealogy."
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12 comments:
White privilege in action.
First arsenic.
Now tanning beds.
The ever-relevant Airplane! Coffee scene
Arsenic and old lace suddenly makes sense.
Racism! What can’t it do!
If the author is implying women were doing this to separate themselves from “people of color” that is absurd since there were no POC in Britain when Wedgwood first perfected his basalt ware in the 1760s. European women’s quest for white skin had nothing to do with “racial purity” or racism. White skin meant that you were wealthy enough to not have to work outside when 90% of the economy was agrarian. White skin with few blemishes meant you were young and healthy. Fair skin has been seen as a sign of youth and fertility, so feminine beauty, in all cultures throughout the world when European “white” people were still backwards and living in caves or one room wattle and daub huts with their animals.
My wife is a colonial. We have never seen such an ugly tea service. Not in the UK and not in Africa.
Speaking of Arsenic and old lace...my cousin's daughter Nicole died in the fire at The Pillars in Newington Ct, which was where the Archers lived prior to moving to Windsor Ct.where they opened Sister Amy's Nursing Home for the elderly where there were 60 suspicious deaths.... http://historicbuildingsct.com/the-pillars-1850/
Proper ladies do not wear gloves when taking tea.
Attributing any rationale to fashion trends is great because no one can say you are right or wrong.
I suppose those French ladies who had hair with ship models set on it were promting the skave trade then?
(See Belle Poule style)
My mother owned a black pottery tea set which I believe was Bennington ware. She and her friends were enthusiastic supporters of black civil rights activism.
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