Tea Caddy Index

History of caddies

Tea and Opium

Request current  list of available tea caddies.

 

 

Back to main page 

| next picture| previous picture   

 Detail: A hand colored print of  cittern player. The cittern was popular from the 17th C. 

At the date of the caddy it the instrument was called "an English guitar". It was a popular an instrument especially for lady amateur players.

In his book The World of Baroque & Classical Musical instruments,  Jeremy Montagu recounts a story that it became so popular that it was seen as a threat to harpsichord manufacture: "Too many people were selling their harpsichords and buying English guitars instead... Kirkman [ a well known harpsichord manufacturer] hit upon the solution --- he gave away a quantity of English Guitars to seamstresses, ladies who combined their skill at sewing with a rather older profession, with the result that respectable ladies of fashion immediately discarded their guitars and returned to the the harpsichord."

All text and images and linked images are © 1999-2006 Antigone Clarke and Joseph O'Kelly. If you require any further information on permitted use, or a licence to republish any material, email us at copyright@hygra.com