Impressive! It looks like a sculpture.
Lost-in-translation teapot designs?
I'm guessing by the lack of a handle that this is a figural Xishi pot, meant to be drunk from directly sort of like a gaiwan with a straw. I've seen one of those before:
A lot of them seem to have built-in jokes, like kissing frogs in this one. (Although this could always be a reference to a folk tale I am unfamiliar with.)
My guess is that with the dog-pot, it is a joke about how dog-owners often look forward to the dog licking their face, even if it is not an especially sanitary or beautiful dog, because it is their dog.
The puppy-as-pot-knob is part of a larger "baby version as the knob" style of figural pot, I think it is supposed to show how tea can connect the generations -- the baby helping out today is the adult being helped tomorrow? Not sure about that, though.
(Or in the frog-pot, today's idle frog is tomorrow's resting place?)
*Edit: Just saw the caption -- that really is a puzzler! Why would there be a baby bixie on a bulldog? And who would lift a bulldog by its hind legs and cause it to barf? That just seems mean.
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Thought this might be good for the thread -- it has a lot of common themes, tree trunk pot in a small size, figural knob with animals... however, it is a teapot that is referencing the 1900s dance song, "Teddy Bears' Picnic". It was given lyrics in the 1930s for a radio show, eventually becoming a well-known nursery song. The original song was a reference to president Teddy Roosevelt, who had been in the news at the time for refusing to shoot a bear during a bear hunt that had been tied to a tree to make it easier for him. By the 1930s, teddy-bears were popular children's toys.
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As for how it ended up on the radio, J.J. Kennedy describes it in his biography of the lyricist, The Man Who Wrote The Teddy Bears' Picnic: How Irish-Born Lyricist and Composer Jimmy Kennedy Became One of the Twentieth Century’s Finest Songwriters.
J.J. Kennedy wrote:It might never have been heard of again but for band leader Henry Hall, (known by everybody in the music business as 'HH'), who had taken over from Jack Payne as the conductor of the influential BBC Dance Orchestra in 1932. He had a programme which went out at the peak hour of 5.15 p.m., a time when children might be listening, usually with their mothers. Henry Hall wanted to play something to interest both audiences but did not have anything he liked in his repertoire so he despatched his arranger, Tony Lowery, to talk to the publishers in Denmark Street to see if he could find something suitable.
As for when someone might use this teapot, perhaps for a first tea with a child.
*Edit: Lost-in-translation in reverse, this might explain why some people would be confused at an adult using a prunus-trunk Yixing pot.
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No clue about this one. A pot by George E. Ohr, who was considered a local tourist attraction in his day and only later appreciated as a potter. Reminds me a bit of an octopus -- perhaps the tea is the ink?
