Description:
English black basalt stoneware, neoclassical-style, octagonal teapot with cover decorated with molded relief decorations of floral swags over classical women's figures in two large side panels. A hard black earthenware made of black-stained clay that was stained throughout with manganese and iron (known then as "Egyptian black") was being made in Staffordshire by about the mid 18th century, but was perfected by Josiah Wedgwood about 1768 and marketed to great success as ornamental and tablewares. In a letter to his partner, Thomas Bentley, Wedgwood hoped that the fashion for white hands and black teapots would continue. Although many English potters made black basalt, there was less interest in America: George Washington owned a black basalt coffeepot; some basalt was found in the wreck of the DeBraak in the Delaware River; and a few other fragments have been found at archaeological sites. One side panel shows woman seated on the left (possibly Athena/Minerva) and a standing Liberty figure holding a pole topped with a Liberty cap on the right; the oposite side panel shows Ceres (probably), the goddess of harvest on the right, unloading her cornacopia into the lap of Pomona or Ops?, the goddess of plenty, on the left. The panels are divided by colonnetts and garlands of flowers; each corner panels has the same stylized tree design. The cover has a sunburst design, with a floral design on the knob on the cover and on the top of the handle; there is a fish scale design encircling the shoulder and a band of acanthus leaves around the base. The pin attaching the cover to the pot is missing.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+82.044 |
