Category:Tea Leaf Art

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"Dregs in the Cup" depicts a fortune teller giving good news to a shy young woman and her protective suitor; perhaps a marriage is foretold
Your Fortune postcard by Joseph Welch and Sons, circa 1907, series JWS-5, tea leaf reading. The caption reads, "A new lover now I see / A jealous lover, seems to me / At odds he'll quickly be with thee."
Tea Girl Safety Matches box cover, India, circa 1930s.


Contents

Tea Leaf Readers in Art

Since the 19th century, images of a female fortune teller reading tea leaves has been a subject of gallery art, popular commercial art, and cartooning.

Harry Roseland Fortune Teller Art

One prominent 19th and 20th century painter who produced many variations on this theme was Harry Roseland. If you like art, you may enjoy my essay on Roseland's art and the Cuban spirit known as La Madama -- it covers several types of African American divination in addition to cup reading.

Tea Leaf Omens and Signs in Art

Tea leaf symbols have been the subject of their own class of artwork, sometimes for instruction purposes and sometimes to convey a sincere or comedic message..

Tea Rooms in Art

Tea rooms, having become most popular during the 20th century, after the invention and wide use of photography, are more often photographed than drawn or painted. While you're here, take a look at some of the vintage tea room postcards, tea room match book covers, tea room menus, and related tea room ephemera we have come across in our own research on the subject of fortune telling by tea cups.

The Art of Selling Tea

Tea company booklets are another fertile field of art related to tasseomancy. Some of them advertise and illustrate the cultivation of tea, and some advertise and popularize the reading of tea leaves.

And, finally, we have collected a gallery of photographs and art that idolize and objectify the female tea pluckers of Ceylon.

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