English playwright Arthur Wing Pinero said that ‘where there’s tea there’s hope’. In many societies, drinking tea is a social event; sometimes even a ritual; something to gather around, something that organises the day, a tradition, a cultural practice. And around the globe, tea is made, served, and being drunk in a variety of ways. Today I’ve found a beautiful selection of teapots from our collections for you to adore – and perhaps to be inspired for a hopeful cup of tea?

↑Collected in Qatar in 1964 by Holger Kapel. Made in Czechoslovakia.

↑Collected in Algeria among the Tuareg by Johannes Nicolaisen, 1951.

↑From the Lur in Iran, collected by Lennart Edelberg in 1964.

↑Collected by Sibba Einersdottír and H. C. Korsholm in Edfu, Egypt, in 2002.

↑Made in Yugoslavia but collected among the Wodaabe in the bush in Nigeria by Mette Bovin, 1996.

↑Also collected by Mette Bovin. Made in Italy, used in Niger among Wodaabe. Decorated by a 16-year-old girl, Doro, with an engravement showing a girl with a transistor radio in the bush. 1996.

↓The following five teapots are collected by Klaus Ferdinand in Afghanistan, 1975:

//Cecil Marie Schou Pallesen