The Year of Living Vicariously
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I don't usually editorialize about these vintage images. I let them speak for themselves as historic documents. But there are things that stand out, little oddities, flashes of charm and grace, quirky inexplicabilities. Let's take a look: | I don't usually editorialize about these vintage images. I let them speak for themselves as historic documents. But there are things that stand out, little oddities, flashes of charm and grace, quirky inexplicabilities. Let's take a look: | ||
| - | * The Bluebird Tea Room in Bettwys-y-oed, Wales is a classic early 20th century British tea room. Like so many of its lovely type, it has a fireplace, and the photographer centers the image on that feature. The display of old dishes or brass utensils is a feature of many such tea rooms, and here we have some large platters on the mantel and a cupboard of chinaware at right, and matched bone china cups and suacers on the tables. | + | * The Bluebird Tea Room in Bettwys-y-oed, Wales is a classic early 20th century British tea room. Like so many of its lovely type, it has a fireplace, and the photographer centers the image on that feature. The display of old dishes or brass utensils is a feature of many such tea rooms, and here we have some large platters on the mantel and a cupboard of chinaware at right, and matched bone china cups and suacers on the tables. The tables are bare, which is a sign that tea rooms are not dining rooms. It is symbolic of humbleness, casual service, and home-coziness. |
| - | * The Riverside Tea Room in Marbleton, Quebec depicts a doubly-vanished piece of history. In the first place, it is obviously a back-porch tea room. In the second place, the village in which it existed is no more, being now just a neighborhood of the rather queerly-named village of Dudswell. So let us gave at the porch-as-tea-room. The out of focus foreground and the glare on the glass window mark this as an amateur snapshot, not the work of a professional photographer. The French door and window show us another room beyond the porch, and i think it is the family's kitchen, perhaps, where the food was prepared for guests. On the wainscot cap moulding we see a row of tender outdoor plants in tin cans. They are not house-plants, or they would have had cache-pots to add to their decorativeness. No, they are just the | + | * The Riverside Tea Room in Marbleton, Quebec depicts a doubly-vanished piece of history. In the first place, it is obviously a back-porch tea room. In the second place, the village in which it existed is no more, being now just a neighborhood of the rather queerly-named village of Dudswell. So let us gave at the porch-as-tea-room. The out of focus foreground and the glare on the glass window mark this as an amateur snapshot, not the work of a professional photographer. The French door and window show us another room beyond the porch, and i think it is the family's kitchen, perhaps, where the food was prepared for guests. On the wainscot cap moulding we see a row of tender outdoor plants in tin cans. They are not house-plants, or they would have had cache-pots to add to their decorativeness. No, they are just the home gardener's variegated Pelargonium and Coleus brought in for the winter. Instead of linen table cloths, XXX |
* Le Tea Room at Le Grand Hotel in Bruxelles, Belgium is a beautiful example of the hotel tea rooms of 1900 through the outbreak of the First World War. There are so many interesting details in this image! First, the name of the room is given in English, not French, | * Le Tea Room at Le Grand Hotel in Bruxelles, Belgium is a beautiful example of the hotel tea rooms of 1900 through the outbreak of the First World War. There are so many interesting details in this image! First, the name of the room is given in English, not French, | ||
Revision as of 23:09, 27 February 2021
On February 26th, 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic breaking out all over, my husband and i went into a self-imposed quarantine or lockdown. We decided to order all of our food online, to run our various businesses from home, and to engage with people remotely until such time as a vaccine was developed for the virus. On the anniversary of that date, which also happens to be the birthday of my late mother-in-law, who died during the course of this year, i find myself, at 73, still too young to be eligible for the vaccine, and i realize that may be here for months. No one has prioritized vaccinating people such as we, home-based writers, metaphysical merchants, and entrepreneurs.
In this year of living vicariously, i find that i have spent quite a lot of time scanning and uploading postcards of vintage and contemporary tea rooms. Obviously i am missing something in my life and am trying to make up for it. I love the experience of being served tea and treat-foods in cunning little out-of-the-way tea rooms and patisseries with Victorian, Edwardian, Mission, or Craftsman style architecture and furnishings -- but i don't love it enough to die for it.
I began the Year of Living Vicariously by randomly uploading tea room and tea cup images to this site. I went into overdrive in Summer by promising to scan and upload one tea room postcard per day from each of the 50 states and every foreign country for which i could find a card. I made that deadline, and then rested on my laurels, scanning and uploading other subjects of the past, particularly fortune telling cards.
On January 1st, realizing that i would not be returning to my shop any time soon, i started a Patreon account, as you all well know. Today i have returned to tea rooms for a one-day Patreon upload blow-out.
Unlike my other Patreon pages, which are being held back for one year, these brand-new card-scans will be seen by the public, and the links in each card's caption on thi page will lead you to its full-size image on its "home page" at the Mystic Tea Room. However, this article, part of my series "From the Land of Tea," i reserve for my Patrons. It is your support that has made this scan-travaganza possible.
So ... what is it about tea rooms?
I don't usually editorialize about these vintage images. I let them speak for themselves as historic documents. But there are things that stand out, little oddities, flashes of charm and grace, quirky inexplicabilities. Let's take a look:
- The Bluebird Tea Room in Bettwys-y-oed, Wales is a classic early 20th century British tea room. Like so many of its lovely type, it has a fireplace, and the photographer centers the image on that feature. The display of old dishes or brass utensils is a feature of many such tea rooms, and here we have some large platters on the mantel and a cupboard of chinaware at right, and matched bone china cups and suacers on the tables. The tables are bare, which is a sign that tea rooms are not dining rooms. It is symbolic of humbleness, casual service, and home-coziness.
- The Riverside Tea Room in Marbleton, Quebec depicts a doubly-vanished piece of history. In the first place, it is obviously a back-porch tea room. In the second place, the village in which it existed is no more, being now just a neighborhood of the rather queerly-named village of Dudswell. So let us gave at the porch-as-tea-room. The out of focus foreground and the glare on the glass window mark this as an amateur snapshot, not the work of a professional photographer. The French door and window show us another room beyond the porch, and i think it is the family's kitchen, perhaps, where the food was prepared for guests. On the wainscot cap moulding we see a row of tender outdoor plants in tin cans. They are not house-plants, or they would have had cache-pots to add to their decorativeness. No, they are just the home gardener's variegated Pelargonium and Coleus brought in for the winter. Instead of linen table cloths, XXX
- Le Tea Room at Le Grand Hotel in Bruxelles, Belgium is a beautiful example of the hotel tea rooms of 1900 through the outbreak of the First World War. There are so many interesting details in this image! First, the name of the room is given in English, not French,
