Glacier (Ice cream pail)

Description

Among period names for this unusual vessel form are ice cream pale or, from the French, glacier. Such dinnerware forms commonly were used at the dessert course, and featured three separate parts: a high-walled lid, which could contain ice; a bucket-shape unit for sweet chilled desserts, which fit inside the lower vessel. The last could be filled with ice or cold water to help insure that the food remained chilled. Objects of this type were produced in nearly all types of refined ceramics, whether earthenware, stoneware or porcelain. As well as in Britain, such wares were made in Continental Europe and Asia. In terms of the printed ornament displayed here, variations on the "Net Pattern," featuring netted grounds as well as floral motifs, chinoiserie pavilions-in-landscapes reserves and floral borders were made at several factories in England. In Staffordshire, the Spode, Job Ridgeway, John and William Ridgeway, John Denton Bagster (or Baxter), and other factories created versions of the design. Factories in Liverpool, Lancashire, also created Net Patterns, including at the Seacombe and Herculaneum potteries. Although this object does not bear a factory mark, its version of the Net Pattern appears closest to types on marked Spode pearlware. (Winterthur is grateful to The Transferware Collectors Club for research support provided by the Paul and Gladys Richards Research Grant Program for Studies in British Transferware.)