Description: Antique Victorian “Story Of Tea” Japanese-style Lithograph Tin Box Caddie - 1890. Many purveyors have illustrated the “Story of Tea” on the sides of their canisters. This appears to be a very early version of that trend, possibly dating to around 1890, a few decades after tin lithography became a common way to package and market tea. This piece shows no branding or maker’s mark, so it is difficult to pinpoint its age and origins. But there are some clues. First off, it is marked 1 (and possibly more) oz on the bottom, with an asking price of -/8 or 8 shillings. So it was most likely made in England, as it would have been less expensive to import tea in bulk instead of pre-packaged in tins. But this also may have been a specialty tea, with an imported package, as 8 shillings for just a few ounces of tea would have been rather expensive when Thomas Lipton would soon be encouraging his dealers to sell an entire pound of leaves for 1 pound 7 shillings. One suggestion that the tin may be Japanese is the exceptional detail in the clothing and fabrics shown in the illustrations. The artist must have been familiar with Japan’s fashion-based signals of social rank to make these drawings. The lithographs are as follows: Panel 1. A farmer tends to or harvests tea while a plantation owner supervises his work. Panel 2. A tea merchant, whose face has been obscured by damage, stands at a counting or measuring table while a worker carries a basket of tea on his head. Panel 3. Women wearing kimonos, and carrying fans and parasols, gather around a chest of newly arrived tea. Panel 4. A woman holding a parasol serves a cup of tea to an elegantly dressed woman in a tea house. Note that the customer is wearing wooden “geta” sandals with raised platforms to keep her kimono out of the rain and mud. The women in the previous panel appear to be wearing more common “zori” sandals. Unfortunately there is significant damage to the lithography, as shown in the photos. Time, use and oxidation have taken a toll. I have done a very light cleaning to show the illustrations in their best light. I am not sure much more can be done outside of significant restoration by an expert. I am not a collector of tea receptacles, so I looked at thousands of images of vintage tea tins to find something similar. I found only a few that even used this form, with the elongated neck and cap. Almost all of them dated to the Victorian era, so I have used that as a guide. This is also a somewhat complicated tin, with three separate pieces being used for both the body and the cap, and one piece of the cap being soldered onto the top. Another piece of the cap has its own lithographed triangular motif. Later manufactures would manage to use just three pieces to form the entire tin. And while many older tea tins show images of people drinking or growing tea, they rarely show the merchants and others who brought the tea to market, which makes this even more unusual. I am open to any information eBay users may have to offer on this item. I will add their insights to this description as warranted.
Price: 75 USD
Location: East Hampton, New York
End Time: 2025-01-22T20:33:47.000Z
Shipping Cost: 0 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Color: Multi-color
Date of Creation: 1890
Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom
