Name/Title
Tea Cozy with Porcelain FaceContext
On the side table along the west wall in the Neill-Cochran House Museum Dining Room is a tea cozy that looks like a beautiful porcelain doll in a hoop skirt. Tea cozies are a Victorian innovation placed over the top of a teapot to keep the contents from getting cold.
This German-made, mid-19th century tea cozy is what is known as a "crinoline lady tea cozy," a tea cozy embellished at the top with a painted porcelain shoulderhead and dressed to look like a doll. The body of the cozy is made from a wire frame wrapped in quilted cotton, with a lace petticoat, a black silk satin dress, and a hand-sewn lace apron. The doll wears a needlework shawl and bonnet and has a bronze and glass bead brooch. Her head and hands are hand-painted porcelain, and her hair is human hair.
This tea cozy was a gift from Mrs. Toni Kay Wirth of Dallas, Texas. You can see "her," and all of our elegant artifacts, Wed-Sun, 11-4pm.Acquisition
Accession
2022.02Source or Donor
Toni WirthAcquisition Method
Gift