Object Number 1961.0932

Object Name

Bowl (Punch bowl)

Category

Ceramics

Credit Line/Donor

Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont

Creator (Role)

John Sadler (Possible printer)
1720-1789
See Anthony Ray, Liverpool Printed Tiles (London: Jonathan Horne Publications, 1994) pp. 1-15 for further information on Sadler and Green.

Robert Sayer (Design inspiration)
1725-02//1794
Sayer became active as a printseller as early as the late 1740s. He built up his stock of copper plates by taking over others’ inventories, first Philip Overton, then James McArdell when he died in 1765. He worked in partnership with John Bennett from around 1774 to 1785, then operated alone again through 1793. When he died in February 1794, the firm (along with Sayer’s stock of plates) were taken over by another London print firm, Laurie & Whittle.

Place of Origin

Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Origin Notes

Probably Staffordshire; possibly Liverpool

Date

1762-1775

Subjects

Maritime; Botanical illustration; Ladies Amusement

Materials

Earthenware (creamware); Lead glaze

Techniques

Printed, Thrown, Enameled

Dimensions (inches)

3.5 (H) , 7.75 (Diam)

Dimensions (centimeters)

8.89 (H) , 19.685 (Diam)

Object Description

Web - 03/24/2015

This vessel fits into a group of punch bowls often known as "ship bowls" because a ship is portrayed on the interior. The bowls often celebrated a new shipping venture. Usually, the ships are painted and many bear inscriptions identifying the ship and its master or owner. In this unusual case, the ship has been printed on via creative reuse of an image originally intended to be applied to a delftware tile.

The ornament on the exterior of the bowl includes two floral motifs--one showing an insect with peapods and another showing strawberries. These designs are virtually identical to motifs in plate 82 of Robert Sayer's 1762 (London) design book "Vade Mecum; Being the Whole Art of Drawing...," which was published in London in 1762. The same engraved plate also is featured in Sayers's more famous "Ladies Amusement," which appeared in several editions from around 1760 onward. There, these relevant motifs appear on plate 8. It is difficult to know which of these design sources was copied for the printed motifs on the creamware bowl shown here.

Bibliography and Bibliographic Notes

[Book] Pappas, Andrea. 2023 Embroidering the Landscape: Women, Art and the Environment in British North America, 1740 - 1770.
• Published: p. 129, fig. 59
[Book] Sayer, Robert. 1762 The Artist's Vade Mecum: Being the Whole Art of Drawing...
• Possible design inspiration for two of the floral prints on this bowl: pl. 82, for butterfly and peapod motif and strawberries motif.
[Book] Sayer, Robert & Pillement, Jean Baptiste. 1959 Ladies Amusement or Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy (orig. c. 1760).
• Possible design inspiration for two of the floral prints on this bowl: pl. 8, for butterfly and peapod motif and strawberries motif.
[Book] Ray, Anthony. 1994 Liverpool Printed Tiles.
• Same print on tile: p. 31, no. B9-8, ship seen from the port beam.