Coffee or chocolate pot

Description

In the vein of “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” many ceramics manufacturers over the centuries have attempted to imitate in less pricey ceramics more costly wares including porcelain. Among these imitations is a pale-bodied earthenware featuring a bluish lead glaze and commonly known as pearlware. The name derived from “pearl white” ware, a type of pottery from Josiah Wedgwood’s Staffordshire, England, factory. Though Wedgwood first brought pearl white ware to market in the late 1770s, other manufacturers appear to have been producing versions of it already, under the name “china glaze.” The term China, in the 1700s, commonly referred to much-prized Chinese export porcelain though as the century progressed European manufacturers also produced a broad range of fine wares. Porcelain from both continents would be imitated in pearlware made at numerous factories in Staffordshire and other English counties. On this coffee- or chocolate pot, underglaze blue-painted Chinese porcelain-inspired designs include on the primary side (with the handle positioned at the right) an elongated figure of a Chinese woman with a parasol, standing in a garden with a fence. On the opposite side is a pavilion (or pagoda), fences and willows. Similar patterns are found on pearlware beverage- and dinnerware excavated at numerous archaeological sites associated with Colonial America.