Carmen Rotaru | On 21, Mar 2013

Tea has been popular during Victorian age, so the tea cups or pots were also frequently part of the paintings depicting the everyday life. The Impressionists often included tea in their visual stories, which shows the increasing popularity of the beverage. The contemporary art also has a taste for tea, as you will certainly discover in our top 10 famous tea paintings.

# 1 Five O’Clock Tea by Julius LeBlanc Stewart

Julius LeBlanc Stewart (1855 – 1919) was an American artist from Philadelphia who spent his career in Paris. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon from 1878 into the early 20th century, and helped organize the Americans in Paris section of the 1894 Salon.

This painting is suggestively named “Five O’Clock Tea”, depicting an afternoon tea meal which was highly popular during the painter’s time. “Five O’Clock Tea” was finished in 1884 and presently can be admired in a private collection of Iris and Gerald Cantor, New York.

# 2 Tea in the Park by Edward Cucuel

Edward Alfred Cucuel (1875-1954) was born in San Francisco, California. He is best known for his paintings of sunny genre scenes of boating, afternoon tea, sleeping or reading in landscape settings. According to Fritz von Ostini, in his book “Der Maler Edward Cucuel” the artist never employed professional models, preferring instead to represent his friends and family.

This is an impressionist painting depicting what was really fashionable back in the days of Edward Cucuel, long walks in the park, the joy of admiring the nature and the afternoon tea custom highly enjoyed by society elites.

# 3 Tea by George Dunlop Leslie

George Dunlop Leslie (1835 – 1921) was an English genre painter, author and illustrator. His early works, showed the strong influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, but he settled into a more academic, aesthetic, style of painting with the aim of showing pictures from the sunny side of English domestic life. Leslie was also an author and had several books published.

“Tea” was painted in 1885. It depicts a very young woman in the dress of the 1700s, standing behind a table covered with a white cloth. She is about to serve tea from a blue willow tea set. Cups with spoons, cream jug, and sugar bowl with lump sugar are all ready on a tray. Behind her is a wooden chair and a white paneled wall.

# 4 Lady at the Tea Table by Mary Stevenson Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844 – 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first became friends with Edgar Degas and later she exhibited her work among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate and affectionate bonds between mothers and children.

This painting was a gift from the painter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She donated the painting in 1923.

# 5 Tea Time by Georges Croegaert

Georges Croegaert (1848-1923) was a Belgian academic painter. Though he was born in Antwerp, Belgium, he spent most of his life in Paris. His name is associated with both classicism and anti-clerical art.

The painting is depicting a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church enjoying a cup of tea. The body position of the priest and the luxury which surrounds the cleric makes this picture a silent critic brought to the higher representatives of the Catholic Church and the luxury they indulged in.

# 6 The Tea Party by Frederic Soulacroix

Frederic Soulacroix (1858-1933) was an Italian academic painter. He was an artist who enjoyed an enormous success during his life. His paintings were mainly for private customers coming from USA, England, Germany (Munich especially), South America, and Canada. He is also famous for making a portrait of Queen Margherita, wife of King Umberto I of Italy and those of the King of Siam and his brother, Prince Sanbasaska.

This is a painting found in a private collection depicting a social scene very popular in those days, tea parties. The ladies wear evening dresses very fashionable at the end of the 19th century.

# 7 Washing Dishes – Emily and her Tea by Charles Courtney Curran

Charles Courtney Curran (1861 – 1942) was an American painter. He is famous for his canvases depicting beautiful women in beautiful settings.

The picture depicts a sweet small girl around seven years old washing a tea set. It is an amazing picture of domestic life during Curran’s time.

# 8 At the Tea Table by Konstantin Korovin

Konstantin Korovin (1861-1939) was a leading Russian Impressionist painter and a talented stage designer. In 1885, Saava Mamontov hired Korovin to design the set for his private opera. By 1900, Korovin had become the designer for the Imperial Theater in Moscow, which is known as the Bolshoi Theater.

This is a painting dating from 1888 depicting a domestic family scene of an afternoon meal and as you can observe the teapot occupies the center of the table suggesting that it was an important piece of kitchenware and that tea was a fashionable beverage.

# 9 Lovely Vase and Cup of Tea by Jamie Paterno

Jamie Paterno is a contemporary Argentinean artist known for the use of vibrant colors delicately spread across canvases in figurative works and still life. The artist graduated from the Fine Art College at Seoul Women’s University and is currently affiliated with several art associations. She has exhibited extensively in both South Korea and the United States since 1995.

This is a painting which places a nice cup of tea near a lovely vase as the painter herself names it, featuring vibrant colors and a childish touch remanding of fairy tales which have long inspired the artist since her early childhood.

# 10 Afternoon Tea by Richard Emile Miller

Richard E. Miller (1875 – 1943) was a major American Impressionist painter and a member of the famous Giverny Colony of American Impressionists. He was mainly a figurative painter, known for his paintings of women posing languidly in interiors or outdoor settings. He is best described as a Decorative Impressionist.

The painting was finished in 1910 and it depicts women in a sunlit landscape framed by a large, vividly patterned Japanese parasol, which exemplifies Miller’s decorative technique.

We are really curious which one of these amazing paintings has enchanted your eyes and heart. If you know other paintings where tea is depicted, feel free to share them here.

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