Cornell Box
My Cornell Box.
I inherited this tea set from my Grandmother. It belonged to my Great grandmother. It is an early 20th century, Royal Copenhagen porcelain production. The company was founded in 1775 by the then queen of Denmark in order to supply tableware for the royal family (and still does) and for export. Its history is entangled with that of other activities and attitudes of the time, including the monomial impulse to extract resources from other countries. The cup contains saffron, peppercorn, fennel seed, an antique postcard cut-out, and Japanese decorative paper.
4 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This is incredible! I imagine a series of these – potent cups of tea full of symbolism with trade routes/origins of porcelain and extractivism of spices/medicinal herbs.
I had been wanting to work with the dishes for years (decades) but all my ideas were off in some way. This was a great prompt to reimagine the objects.Making this a series is one possibility, however, I also have another couple of ideas I’ll try out.
I don’t know why but this makes me think of the Forests in the Pacific Northwest it feels very “earthy”. I wonder if you have found any connections between peppercorn, Denmark, and Japan.
That is a strange and wonderful reference. I’ll have to think about that relationship. Yes, the Danes built Fort Dansborg in Tharangambadi, India in 1620 as an outpost for the spice trade. Apparently they didn’t fare well, but the castle is still there: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20160929-indias-scandinavian-secret. The Japanese connection is less specific, actually, it should be something from China as the use of cobalt on white porcelain comes from there.