English Pearlware Mocha Pottery Jug With Cat’s Eye Polka Dot Decoration

Details

Description

English Pearlware Mocha Pottery Jug with Cat’s Eye Polka Dot Decoration
Circa 1810–1820

This early nineteenth-century pearlware jug is decorated … Read more English Pearlware Mocha Pottery Jug with Cat’s Eye Polka Dot Decoration
Circa 1810–1820

This early nineteenth-century pearlware jug is decorated in one of the most graphic of all the dipped-ware techniques, the multicolored slip dot known to collectors as the cat’s eye. The barrel-shaped body, thrown and then turned on the lathe, has an applied pointed spout and a plain loop handle, and is probably of Staffordshire manufacture.

A broad central frieze of dark brown slip is densely scattered with cat’s eyes in white, soft blue and ochre. Each was formed by a single drop from a three-chambered slip cup, the three colors landing side by side, so that most dots show two or three overlapping tones. The drops fall in loose, drifting clusters around the body, giving the band a restless, almost kinetic energy that feels strikingly modern and has earned the pattern its nickname of “polka dot.” Above, lathe-applied ochre bands flank a quiet band of drab (gray-brown) slip beneath the rim, and three further ochre bands encircle the lower body.

For all its modest size, the dark dotted frieze and crisp ochre banding give the jug real graphic presence. It sits well on a dresser, open kitchen shelving or a bookcase, and groups naturally with creamware, pearlware and other dipped wares.

Dimensions
Height: 6 inches (15.2 cm)

Provenance
New Hampshire Private Collection.

Condition
A small chip to the foot rim and a small chip to the top rim, consistent with the everyday use for which these tavern and household wares were made.

References
Jonathan Rickard, Mocha and Related Dipped Wares, 1770–1939 (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2006), chapter 5, “The Multichambered Slip Pot.”
Donald Carpentier and Jonathan Rickard, “Slip Decoration in the Age of Industrialization,” Ceramics in America (2001).
Lynne Sussman, Mocha, Banded, Cat’s Eye, and Other Factory-Made Slipware (Boston: Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, 1997).
Compare the barrel-shaped jug with cat’s eye decoration, British, circa 1820, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 2017.406.

Historical Context
Although collectors call all such pieces “mocha,” the name strictly belongs to the dendritic, tree-like pattern that imitated moss agate, or “mocha stone”; the potters sold the whole family as “dipped” ware, and ceramic historians now group it as industrial slipware. The pots were thrown, then turned on a lathe, where the slip bands and decoration were applied as the piece revolved. The three-chambered slip cup, its spouts fitted with goose quills, came into use around 1810; the same tool produced the trailed “cable” that collectors call earthworm, and the twig pattern, and the cat’s eye is met with less often than the ubiquitous earthworm.

Mocha was the cheapest decorated earthenware of its day, made in quantity for taverns and households on both sides of the Atlantic and used hard until it broke. Survivors with a bold, well-executed cat’s eye field such as this are keenly sought by collectors of English pottery and American folk art alike.

(Ref: NY10968-nnrr) See less