Description:
English creamware cup with a slightly flared lip, tall cylindrical shape, attached scroll handle, and applied foot rim, which is a style of cup that could also be used to serve either coffee or chocolate. The cup is decorated on two sides with identical scrollwork-framed, relief reserves of a pineapple flanked by seven serrated leaves, all issuing from a vase; the reserves are framed within scrollwork and foliage, and set against a fine-ribbed relief basketweave ground. Enoch Booth (c.1703-1773) of Tunstall, England, developed the fine, light-colored earthenware now known as creamware in the early 1740s using the various improvements in body, glaze, and firing; but it was Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) who perfected and successfully marketed the ceramic body. Wedgwood’s version of creamware resulted from many experiments with white clays and improved glazes; by 1762, he had developed a light, sturdy, refined, and yet inexpensive cream-colored earthenware body. Wedgwood described the new product as "a species of earthenware for the table, quite new in appearance, covered with rich and brilliant glaze, bearing sudden alterations of heat and cold, manufactured with ease and expedition, and consequently cheap." Middle-class consumers rushed to purchase creamware, bringing the popularity of alternative ceramics such as tin-glazed earthenware and salt-glazed stoneware to an end. In an effort to capture a segment of the creamware market, many English potteries also began to produce the ceramic; estimates suggest that more than 150 factories in England manufactured the ware. Unfortunately most early wares were not marked, making attribution to a particular factory difficult. According to Leslie Grigsby, wasters (discarded shards) from different molds with relief pineapple-and-basket-weave grounds were excavated at the William Greatbatch factory waste site at Lower Lane, Fenton, and date from 1765 to 1782. This popular pattern was also produced with minor variations at several Staffordshire factories, as well as at Cockpit Hill and other Derbyshire factories. The most common survivors are in lead-glazed earthenware (pattern is also found on contemporary salt-glazed stonewares). See HD 2006.33.38 for a teapot in a variation of this pattern. Other examples of these cups have been shown to have gilded decoration - see example in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection # 3203-1853. Condition: There is a long vertical hairline crack in the coffee cup.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2006.33.33.1 |
