The Tea-Tax-Tempest, or the Anglo-American Revolution

Carl Guttenberg of Nuremburg

1778

In this print, Father Time is shown using a magic lantern to project a picture of a tea pot exploding in between an American army composed of colonists and an Indian warrior and a fleeing British army of yoked soldiers and lion cubs. Watching Father Time's show are an Indian (America), a Black woman (Africa), a woman holding a lantern (Asia), and a white woman holding a shield and spear (Europe). In another version of this print, Father Time is depicted as telling his audience "There you see the little Hot Spit Fire Tea pot that has done all the Mischief... There you see the Stam'd Paper help to make the Pot Boil..."

Book ornament: A steaming urn about to explode.

From Hilliaed d'Auberteuil, Essais Historiques

1781

Steaming tea pots and tea urns were often symbols of the American Revolutionary War.

The State Nurses

1 Oct. 1781

The British lion sleeps, while four dogs representing Holland, America, France and Spain try to wake it by barking. The dog representing American urinates on a paper incribed "Tea Act" and barks "Independence and no Taxation."