I meet Amanda Dunsmore, curator of Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Victoria, over a (virtual) cup of tea.

Have you ever seen a teapot, teacup or piece of teaware in a museum or gallery and wonder how it got there? Why that piece, from that artisan, from that period?

For different spaces there are different curatorial drives. Other curators focus on Asia or more recent work, but for Amanda Dunsmore, curator in the Decorative Arts department at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), it’s about representing tea culture in England and Europe from the 17th century until 1980.

“It depends on the age and the rarity of a work. So if we’re looking, for instance, at the rise of tea culture in Europe, we’re looking at the late 17th, but particularly the 18th century when tea really starts to become imported into England and Europe in significant quantities. So you see the range of products being produced to serve tea and the culture of tea drinking developing around this,” she explains.

The gallery tends to target works, liaising with dealers and occasionally buying at auctions, though there’s a “greater degree of risk with an auction house”.

“We would be targeting a specific work, more often than not. Sometimes the dealer might come to us with works that they think might be of interest because they know the collection, but more often than not it’s us looking for particular works,” she says. “That’s really based on the collection. We’re looking to develop strengths or fill in gaps in the collection where perhaps a manufacturer or a designer is not represented, but they are significant.”

Sometimes there are items that show how tea-drinking has changed. “The equipage or the sort of the appurtenances that go with the rituals of tea drinking do shift over time. In the 18th century you have slop bowls for literally tipping out the dregs of your teacup so you can fill it again.”

Dunsmore anticipates the question about which of her collection is a favourite and selects three for consideration:

• an early 18th century Meissen teapot from Germany where the glaze imitates Japanese lacquer (view);
• a mid-18th century teapot reminiscent of sculpted strawberry leaves, made by Chelsea Porcelain Factory in London (view); and
• a 20th century modernist piece called Pelicanus Bellicosus by Matteo Thun, produced by Alessio Sarri Ceramiche in Florence (pictured below).

The last example prompts the question: how does it pour? “Maybe it’s functional, I don’t know, we’ve never tried it. When an object enters the building, it takes on a different status as an artwork the moment it comes through the door.”

Fortunately it’s not all objects and no tea in Dunsmore’s day. She starts the morning with a cuppa from the Daintree Tea Company and has a penchant for Japanese green teas. “And my husband’s actually French and so as an indulgence we do actually enjoy Mariage Frères sometimes.”

This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 2 June 2020. Mailchimp no longer allows external links to the original newsletter.