On Thursday March 25, Christopher Garibaldi will be discussing the origins and elaborating on the idiosyncrasies of this much-cherished beverage via an online zoom lecture at 6.30pm.

Aptly titled 'Time for Tea: A History of British Teapots and Tea Drinking', the lecture serves as an introduction to the teapot collection at Norwich Castle Museum which has the largest specialist collection of British ceramic teapots in the world, housed in the Twining Teapot Gallery. 

Christopher Garibaldi

Garibaldi will look into the changing role of tea from its introduction in the 17th century as a fashionable and expensive drink of great exoticism associated with courtly and aristocratic circles through to its eventual position at the centre of the British psyche as the ‘national drink’. 

This lecture also examines the development of the teapot as it reflects the technological advances and developments of general British ceramic history. 

The lecture combines both art and social history to trace the unique position teapots and tea drinking occupy in British culture.

Garibaldi is an independent researcher who, between 2008 and 2010, was co-director of the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections.  

The ornate design and decoration of a teapot.

Between 2010 and 2019, he was director of Palace House, Newmarket (National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art). 

Between 1994 and 1997, he catalogued the silver in the royal collection at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and other royal residences and was senior curator and assistant keeper of art (decorative art) at Norwich Castle Museum.

For more information and registration, contact Nicole Stilon at membership.secretary.asinmalta@theartssociety.org.  Price is €9.