Description:   Canton Tea, Coffee and Chocolate Pots make up a confusing world in defining the many, many variations to be found. Therefore, we have listed all of them under “Teapots”. Designations that have come into common useage such as “Censor”, “Dome-Top”, “Lighthouse” will be used as well as physical descriptions such as “Drum Shape”, “Pear Shape” and “Conical Shape”. In buying any teapot make sure the top fits well.

Lighthouse teapots, with both curved and straight spouts, are considered the most graceful and the most desirable of all the teapot forms. They are conical shaped, have twisted handles, wide bases and a small raised rim around the middle. Also, the bases have rims and the bottoms are glazed. The tops have a persimmon shaped knob, they sit on the rims rather than seated in an inset rim, and they overhang the base rims.  The five teapots pictured here have straight spouts. They all have very good decoration so we date them from early 19th Century to mid 19th Century. The largest I have seen was: 5 1/4″ base diameter x 8 1/8″ high; top diameter: 4 1/4″. Total Weight: 2 lbs. 13 oz.; Top: 8 oz.; Base: 2 lbs. 5 oz.

Here is a nice quote we found on page 187 in a 1892 copyrighted book: China Collecting in America by Alice Morse Earle. “In Newport, in Bristol, in Providence, in Boston–wherever ships could sail from port, and wherever favoring winds wafted them back again, vast stores of this old blue Canton ware have been and can be found; tall coffee-pots, with straight spouts, looking like lighthouses with bowsprits; short, clumsey teapots with twisted handles and lids that always fall off; jugs, tureens, helmet-pitchers, and sauce-boats.”