Description:
German salt-glazed stoneware jug with decorated with a molded bearded face on the neck opposite the handle over an applied molded coat of arms of the city of Amsterdam, composed of three St. Andrew crosses, aligned vertically, but rotated 90 degrees, which historians believe represent the three dangers that have traditionally plagued the city - fire, flood and pestilence. German stoneware potters developed and international market for their wares as early as the 16th century; the Rhineland area of Germany produced much of the utilitarian stoneware of England, the Netherlands, and early America. Brown and gray stonewares were their specialties; brown stonewares (buff colored clay coated with a layer of iron-rich slip) were made in the towns of Sieburg, Raren, and Freichen. Rhenish stoneware jugs with armorial medallions and bearded-man masks ("bartmannkruge"), which are known today as a Bartmann, Bellarmine or greybeard bottle, on the neck such as this example, occasionally containing Rhine wine, were imported into this county from Rotterdam via England. The symbolish of the bearded man is undetermined, but may be a traditional Bacchus image; and one story says was the face was that of the hated Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (1542-1621), a leader of the Counter-Reformation. German stoneware drinking vessels were extremely popular in the American colonies, and similar jugs have been found in colonial American archaeological sites. The circa 1760 privy pit excavated on the property of Doctor Thomas Williams (1718-1775) of Deerfield contained at least three mugs and a chamberpot all made of gray "Westerwald" type stoneware. This piece was deaccessioned from the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1983.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+83.127 |
