By the 1870's, ceramics manufacturers were searching for new, novel shapes and designs.  In this teapot, the Ashworth potters seem to have succeeded on all counts, transforming the soft lines of the traditional pear shape pot into a bombe profile defined by crisp corners.  Continuing their quest for the exotic, this ironstone pot is swathed in a brilliant emerald green enamel -- almost metallic in the way it catches the light. Over this a gilt vine pattern of eastern origins entirely encases the piece. The ornamentation goes further, using all this as a ground for chinoiserie floral and scenic reserves.

The primary diamond and circular reserves on each side feature stylized compositions based on the lotus and the passion flower, highlighted in deep red, purple and pale green. The other smaller circular and fan shape reserves near the handle and spout present Chinese landscape studies.  Gilt detail on the knop and pin-striping on the handle and around the edge of the lid finish the piece.  The overall effect suggests an eastern mogul's treasure at home with rich embroidery or enameled metal work.

The 1870's time period of this teapot places it in a market obsessed with exotic elegance.  One need only look to the paintings of life at the top tiers of society by Alfred Stevens or James Tissot -- or Edmund de Waal's description of society in Paris in The Hare with the Amber Eyes --  to understand this increasingly passionate consumerism.  While Ashworth's teapot may not have reached those exalted levels of society, the dreams and aspirations of their customers did.   

Flipping through Phillip Miller and Michael Berthoud's chronological review of teapots (An Anthology of British Teapots, 1985) provides an insight into how Ashworth's bombe shape pot fits into the progression. The first three hundred and fifty pages or so depict a logical evolution moving from variation to variation of what we see as traditional shapes. Suddenly after 1860 the array explodes in multiple directions. Ranging from a few pots of simple shape and decoration to the bizarre and from the demure to the exotic and even outrageous, the unifying concept seems to be the pursuit of novelty and in many cases a sense of preciousness. Here we find our teapot illustrated, page 352, plate 2112.