After Anna R.’s grandmother passed away in 2012 her relatives packed up her belongings and decided that Anna should receive this pewter teapot. Her grandmother bought the pot in the early 1970s at Juwelier Hansen in Kiel, a town on the Baltic coast of Germany. This branch of the jeweller Hansen sold more affordable gifts made out of pewter rather than silver.

Anna is originally from Darmstadt and came to study as an Erasmus student at the Bartlet School of Architecture in 1997. After returning to Germany and finishing her studies, Anna went to Seattle for nine months. She liked the USA but decided it was too far away from the family; making visits home very difficult. Instead, in 2002, she came to London to work as an architect and now lives in Archway: ‘I feel very much at home in Britain but I am also close enough to Germany to visit my parents regularly’.

Besides a bookshelf from the 1950s made by the Swedish company String, the teapot is the only decorative objects in Anna’s house: ‘I am an architect and like things very sleek and very simple’. It sits on her windowsill and is a reminder of her grandparents who had to travel frequently during the Second World War and could not take many things with them. Yet it is neither just a memento nor purely a decorative piece: ‘I like to use all the objects in my flat; I don’t really embellish, I integrate everything – old or new – into my everyday life’.

Object Information

• Year Received: 2012
• Year of Purchase: Early 1970s
• Place of Purchase: Juwelier Hansen, Kiel
• Producer: Paris France Du Manoir
• Material: Pewter
• Size: 17 cm x 26 cm
• Colour: Silver; ETAIN engraved on bottom of tea-pot