Deksel van suikerpot, deel van een theeservies 1934

This is Petrus Regout’s sugar bowl lid, part of a tea set. The exact date this was made is unknown, but he was active in the 19th century. Isn’t it funny how objects of design end up in museums? I mean, it looks like the kind of thing you’d see in a Wes Anderson movie. I wonder if Regout would have thought of himself as an artist, but he was definitely concerned with aesthetics, with creating a certain mood around the ritual of tea. He could have been thinking of pyramids, or space ships, or maybe just trying to give it a nice ergonomic lift, you know? The glaze has this subtle, speckled texture—like raw clay—except for that vivid orange handle. The whole thing has a kind of quirky elegance. Even though it was probably mass-produced, there's something really intimate and human about it. All makers are in conversation with one another, like a game of telephone passed through generations.