Tea Tin, Adventurer Tea, Simpson's Tea Company, London, 20th Century

An English tea tin by Adventurer Tea, packed by Simpson's Tea Company of London and designed by Silver Crane, dating from the second half of the twentieth century. The tin has a distinctive curved form with scalloped edges and a hinged lid, decorated in turquoise, red and gold with illustrations of a hot air balloon over a mountain landscape and two gentlemen in a gondola. The exterior shows light signs of use; the interior is gold-lacquered and in good condition.

Silver Crane was one of the leading English designers of decorative tins, working for a range of tea companies that played on nostalgia for the colonial tea adventure. The name Adventurer Tea, the references to Ceylon and India, and the hot air balloon as motif all point to an era when tea and exploration were inseparable in the British collective memory. This tin was designed to be kept, and that is precisely what happened.