Imagine throwing a tea party and serving up the brews in this!
The world’s most valuable teapot is worth a whopping $3,000,000 (£2,307,900; €2,704,800), meaning you probably wouldn’t be keen to risk staining it by actually serving tea in it.
The stunning jewel-encrusted pot is owned by the N Sethia Foundation (UK), a charity that supports medical research, arts, youth activities and disaster relief.
It was appraised in London, UK, in August 2016.
It was handmade by Italian jeweller Fulvio Scavia out of 18-carat yellow gold and gold-plated silver.
Cut diamonds cover the entire body of the teapot and a 6.67-carat ruby sits in the centre as a gorgeous focal point.
The handle is made from the fossilized ivory of a mammoth, an elephant-like creature that went extinct thousands of years ago.
The special item is one of just many tea accessories that British-Indian billionaire Nirmal Sethia, Chairman and Managing Director of Newby Teas, has in his Chitra Collection.
His private collection of antique and newly commissioned teaware is said to include many pieces of great historical and financial value.
This record-breaking teapot was specially commissioned as an addition to the impressive collection.
According to collection’s website: “The Chitra Collection is an extraordinary private museum of historic teawares. In 2011 Nirmal Sethia, the Chairman of the luxury tea company, Newby Teas, set himself the task of acquiring the world’s greatest collection of teawares to record and preserve tea cultures of the past.
Today, the collection, named in honour of his late wife, Chitra, totals almost 2,000 objects and is already the world’s finest and most comprehensive of its kind.
The collection includes items from Europe, Asia and the Americas, and catalogues over 1,000 years of history.
The website adds: “For centuries, tea played a central role in culture and society as a medicinal and revitalising drink, a focus for hospitality and familial domesticity, and as a symbol of national identity.
“Tea was also politically and economically significant as a source of profit, a tool of empire and as a trigger for revolution, war and slavery. Today, tea is the most ubiquitous of beverages and occupies an important place in the heart of Britain’s life and psyche.
The exquisite and innovative tea wares preserved in the Chitra Collection are testimony to the significance of tea and the rich material culture that it has inspired over the past millennium.
The collection is currently housed privately in London, although there are talks of it one day going on public exhibition.
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