Pearlware Jug With Sponged Cobalt Blue Ground, Blue and White Circa 1790–1810

Details

Description

Pearlware Jug with Sponged Cobalt Blue Ground, Blue and White
Circa 1790–1810
England, probably Staffordshire

This attractive pearlware jug is … Read more Pearlware Jug with Sponged Cobalt Blue Ground, Blue and White
Circa 1790–1810
England, probably Staffordshire

This attractive pearlware jug is decorated with a dense, finely mottled cobalt blue ground reserved between broad white bands at the neck and the foot. The ovoid body tapers gently to a pinched pouring lip, and the plain loop handle of rounded section is painted along its outer face with a column of feathered blue leaf strokes, the cool bluish cast of the pearlware glaze setting off the strength of the blue throughout.

The white band at the neck is painted in underglaze blue with a freely drawn scalloped lappet border beneath a double line at the rim, carried around and out over the spout, and the molded acanthus leaf terminal beneath the spout is picked out in the same blue. The ground itself shows the soft, granular mottling characteristic of cobalt sponged onto the biscuit rather than brushed on evenly, an effect that varies from piece to piece and gives each jug of this kind its own character. The glazed base is turned with a recessed central ring within an unglazed footrim.

Dimensions
Height: 6 inches (15.2 cm)
Width: 6 1/2 inches (16.5 cm), spout to handle
Depth: 4 inches (10.2 cm)

Marks
Unmarked.

Provenance
The D. H. and S. E. Miller Collection (yellow label to the underside printed "D.H. & S.E. Miller Collection," numbered X021 in ink).
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good condition, with no repair or restoration. Minor frits to the rim and the tip of the spout, and light staining and wear to the footrim, all consistent with age and use.

References
George L. Miller and Robert Hunter, "How Creamware Got the Blues: The Origins of China Glaze and Pearlware," Ceramics in America (2001).
Robin Hildyard, English Pottery 1620–1840 (V&A Publications, 2005).

Historical Context
Pearlware takes its name from the "Pearl White" introduced by Josiah Wedgwood in 1779, a refinement of creamware in which a small addition of cobalt to the glaze corrected the yellow cast of the earlier body and produced a cool, bright white, although a cobalt-tinted "china glaze" was already in use among other Staffordshire potters by the mid-1770s for blue-painted wares. Within a few years it had become the standard refined earthenware body of the late Georgian period, made across Staffordshire and in Yorkshire, the North East, and Scotland.

Sponged and mottled blue grounds of this kind belong to the wider family of inexpensive decorated earthenwares made in quantity as a hard-wearing alternative to porcelain, the color applied directly to the biscuit with a sponge or brush before glazing rather than painted or printed as a pattern. Jugs of this size and form were everyday vessels, used for beer, cider, milk, and water in ordinary households on both sides of the Atlantic, and they survive in far smaller numbers than their original production would suggest.

Placement
At six inches, the jug sits comfortably on a kitchen shelf, a bar cart, or a bedside table, and the deep mottled blue holds its own against both painted and natural wood. It groups easily with other blue and white pottery or Chinese export porcelain, and works equally well as a single accent holding a few stems of garden flowers. See less