Bowl, tea bowl

In 1672, John Dwight set up a pottery in Fulham. He became the first Englishman to make stoneware, produced by firing clay at very high temperatures. In the 1970s, excavations at Fulham revealed the extent of Dwight’s wares and experiments.

This fragment of a red stoneware tea bowl, with thickened rim and foot ring, copies Chinese Yixing ware. The bowl has been wheel thrown and lathe turned. Yixing redware was imported from China with cargoes of tea. This vessel and others from the excavation constitute some of the earliest surviving English-made ceramic teawares.