Designer: Robert Venturi (1925 – 2018), Denise Scott Brown (b. 1931)

Item: Village Coffee and Tea Service

Manufactured by: Swid Powell

Country of origin: Japan

Year made: Designed in 1985, manufactured in 1986

Materials: Glazed stoneware with overglaze transfer-printed decoration

Dimensions: Coffee pot is 10” x 9” tip of spout to end of handle; tea pot is 5” x 10” tip of spout to end of handle; sugar is 4 ½” x 4 ½” x 3 ¼”; and creamer is 3” x 7” x 4 ½”.

Description: Here is a very rare and complete Village coffee and tea service designed by Venturi and Scott Brown in 1985 and only produced and retailed in the single 1986/87 season, and only in very small quantities.  This set comes complete with the Tuscan tower coffee pot, Pantheon shaped tea pot, a Peasants Hut lidded sugar, and Palazzo shaped creamer.  The coffeepot and sugar retain their original Made in Japan stickers.  A sugar spoon was never produced for this set.  

The original sketches for the coffee pot and teapot are published in the Tapert book, as are photos of the complete set.  Examples of this set can be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery and others.  The Yale University Art Gallery also has the original prototypes and Venturi’s design drawings.  It is unusual to find a complete set in such fine condition. 

Condition: Excellent overall.  The teapot, coffeepot and creamer are flawless and appear unused.  The lidded sugar has some light and hard-to-see crazing on two sides and the bottom, and the roof of the sugar has spots of glaze loss, as well as crazing to the portions of the thicker yellow glaze.  The crazing to the roof is a condition we have noted on every other example of this object we have seen, including the example at the Brooklyn Museum, and appears to be related to the much thicker glaze that was used than for the rest of the pieces.  Otherwise, an unusually well cared for and apparently unused set. 

Full sets are very rare to begin with and we have yet to see a full set in such nice condition. Usually the coffee pots and teapots have crazing in the glaze from use and the expansion and contraction of the stoneware from hot liquids being put into cooler containers. Because stoneware is fired at a lower temperature than porcelain it is less durable. Thus, finding flawless examples is quite difficult.

References: Tapert, Annette. SWID POWELL: Objects by Architects, Rizzoli, 1990; Swid Powell trade catalogs.