Despite the blooming jonquils and the rose bushes that are leafing out, it's turned freezing cold again here in Georgia this week. And since I can't play outdoors, I've been looking up gardens old and new on the internet, including tea gardens of yesteryear, which led me to this photo of the Chinese Pavilion at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904. I love seeing the ladies' fashions as they're walking toward the pavilion. It's hard for me to imagine a time when such an outfit was as casual to them as a comfy pair of slacks and a blouse or top would be to us today.
I found an interesting video here that said that the rest of the world didn't know much about China in 1904, and the Chinese Pavilion at the World's Fair that year was an attempt to change that. All interesting, but I still failed to detect the word "tea" anywhere in this information, so I wondered why it came up in conjunction with this photo when I searched the Library of Congress website.
Then I found this photo on Wikimedia Commons, and I think this explains it. That gorgeous building to the left was the tea house of the Chinese prince's reconstructed, scaled-down summer house. Looks like it materialized right off of some Blue Willow china, doesn't it?
It does indeed look like the Blue Willow, except for the color.:-)
ReplyDeleteThose are wonderful photos! If you are ever in St. Louis, be sure and go to the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park--it has lots of interesting items from that 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
ReplyDeleteThis post sent me down a rabbit hole. The building reminded me of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, which was built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific Exposition. When I did a little research it seems they had a Japanese Tea House, which was move by barge to Belmont, CA. Now today the San Francisco Tea Festival is held there. All these old building for fairs and expositions intrigue me.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Angela, for taking us down memory lane all the way to 1904 and the World’s Fair that happened then in Missourie. I wasn’t aware of the participation of Chinese Pavilion and I too eyed the trend in dressing of the ladies back at those times. Highly appreciate in sharing the information on how the building in the picture was later constructed as the tea house of the Chinese prince.
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