Jug (Cream or milk pitcher or pot)

Description

Throughout much of ceramics history, plagiarism has played a large part in ceramic design. In the case of this small cream or milk jug, originally for use when serving tea, imitation the art of imitation is reflected in several ways. The overall form of the jug’s body, as well as its lion’s mask-and-paw feet, imitate aspects of fashionable silver vessels. The so-called boy-in-tree relief motif on the exterior of the wall of the pot sometimes has been associated with Chinese ceramics but actually imitates Classical European imagery of the child Bacchus (who was associated with wine) in a grapevine. Tea- and more occasionally dinnerware portraying such designs were produced in Staffordshire, England, in salt-glazed white stoneware and unglazed red stoneware. Such items were popular for both domestic and foreign markets, including the American colonies. A so-patterned salt-glazed stoneware sauceboat was excavated in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, at the Hart-Shortridge House site. Fascinatingly, when unearthed, the sauceboat retained its circa 1750, white lead paint repair to its pouring lip. For Winterthur’s Staffordshire stoneware featuring “boy-in-tree” relief motifs, see 2024.0014.058 (salt-glazed white jug), .065 and .066 (unglazed redware jug and teapot).