The World Service - a ceramic tea set
The World Service was a seven piece ceramic tea set, made in 1996, the year after the Century Plant - Agave Americana - in the Oxford Botanic Gardens collection, flowered. It is, perhaps, a once in a generation event but this one had not flowered for close to a hundred years so its nick name, the 'Century Plant,' is not such an exaggeration.
Movie-star Plant
The event made national headlines and world news. I was living in Yorkshire at the time. Oxford was my home town and I had a long standing attachment to the Botanic Gardens. The flowering of this movie-star plant had to be remembered and the tea set idea was born.
Exhibition History
I secured Arts Council funding and private sponsorship and the exhibition of the tea set toured starting at the Platform Gallery in Clitheroe, to Huddersfield Art Gallery, The Manor House, Ilkley, The Geffrye Museum - now the Museum of the Home, the Museum of Garden History - now The Garden Museum, the Museum of Oxford, Ryton Organic Gardens, and Primavera Gallery in Cambridge.
The World Service is for sale by Auction
Six of the seven place settings, along with both tea pots, the jugs and sugar bowl are up for auction via Mitchell's Auction house in Cockermouth, Cumbria. They've been beautifully photographed and presented and I hope they sell on to new homes. The collector, to whom I sold the work, loved it and regularly showed in his gallery in Ambleside. Give these pieces a good new home! All links below.
Decolonisation
The tea set was an early example in the UK of what is now called 'decolonisation.' It is a celebration of the collection but it is also a critique of plant collecting from what we then called, 'anti-imperialist' position. The names change - 'postcolonial' was the preferred expression in the early 2000s and now it is 'decolonisation.' The catalogue, for which I raised the sponsorship money, is where the critique is written.
The Seven Place Settings
Each place setting had a cup and saucer and plate and set had two tea pots and a collection of small jugs and a sugar bowl. One of the tea pots took the form of the Century Plant, the other, the Strelitzia flower (see image of both tea pots.) The Century Plant was oddly unremarkable to look at apart from its gigantic size whereas the Strelitzia plant, with which it shared a glass house was magnificent and barely got a mention in the national press. It was the obvious candidate for the second tea pot.
Time for Tea
The story begins with The Goat & The Tea Merchant, the first place setting. The cup, saucer and plate depict the garden's architecture and some of its oldest plants, the first in the collection, selected by Jacob Bobart, a tea merchant and plant collector who also had a pet goat.
Collecting Bulbs and a Carriage and Pair, remembers seventeenth century 'Tulipomania' when tulip bulbs were traded for colossal prices and effectively founded futures markets.
Of this place setting only the plate was photographed. I hadn't completed the cup and saucer. They exist but are not featured in the sale of the World Service as far as I can see.
The Tea Leaf's Tale, (see plate image,) represents the cash crop plants in the collection: tea, coffee, sugar, and chocolate among others. It is the only one which is obviously critical - it shows an outline of the West African coast and sugar cane plants indicating the slave trade.
The Rose Bowl, celebrates the English garden, particularly the herbaceous border and recognises the origins of many of these plants in the far East and Central Asia.
Iron Rice Bowl or Famine Gene Pool (see image cup & saucer,) represents the food crop collection. There was much discussion in the press at the time about genetic engineering. The Iron Rice Bowl was a Maoist declaration which promised enough food for the Chinese population. It is a reflection on the competing claims about food production and security in political and industrial propaganda and advertising.
The Virgin and the Whore celebrates the supposed sexual properties of plants both in their imagery and in their medicinal uses.
The Damp Patch depicts the plants in the bog garden which was being repaired at the time the Century Plant flowered. It returns us to the Goat and the Tea Merchant, including, as it does, the stone urn with fine rendition of Bobart's goat.
Jugs and the Sugar bowl
The jugs and sugar bowl are all based on the forms of carnivorous plants in the collection. In the auction they are in two different lots, two with Strelitzia tea pot and two with the Century Plant tea pot.
There is a catalogue that accompanies this work which contains the full story of each of the pieces in the set. Contact me via this site if you would like a copy.
The auction is from December 10-12th 2025.
Reserve price per lot is a mere £60.00 so it is a fabulous chance to get some art from the 1990s and these works don't come up often on auction sites. Go for it!