This second in-person event offers the opportunity for another 10 people to visit The Chitra Collection, an extraordinary private museum of historic teawares, with Assistant Curator Evelyn Earl.
In order to secure your place in the group, book now before all 10 places are filled.
The visit will take place on Thursday 16th October 2025
4pm to 5.30pm
Price £30
porcelain painted with enamels and gilded
Porcelain painted in enamels and gilt
Dutch silver mounts added in19th century
Join our second group of 10 people to find out more about some of the exquisite antique tea wares in the Chitra Collection. The Chitra Collection is owned by the N. Sethia Foundation, a charity founded by Nirmal Sethia, Chairman of Newby Teas, in 1995, which supports medical research, the arts, youth activities and disaster relief management.
In 2011 Nirmal Sethia, 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 2000 objects and is already the world’s finest and most comprehensive of its kind. You will see ancient pieces from China, Europe, Asia and the Americas, and from over a thousand years of history.
The Chitra Collection is a unique reflection of the importance of tea and the diversity of tea drinking customs across the world. 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.
