Description:
In early America hot chocolate was a favorite breakfast beverage. Ceramic chocolate pots are much more rarely encountered in comparison to their metalware counterparts. Pottery vessels may have proved too fragile for vigorous stirring and frothing of the heated chocolate, but some like this rare example do survive. American probate inventory references to ceramic chocolate pots are also infrequent. The 1782 inventory for Colonel James Montague of Middlesex County, Virginia, listed “1 Queens China. Chocolate Pot” valued at one shilling three pence, and the 1777 probate inventory of Richard Blackledge of Craven County, North Carolina, included, “ 1 Queens China Chocolate Pott 10.” Creamware chocolate pot with a double cover - the cover separates into two pieces: a circular ring and a small finial for the insertion of a chocolate mill or molinet to stir the chocolate) - with a ball finial, truncated cone shape. and an indented strap handle. The pot is decorated in overglaze polychrome enamels on one side with a pair of exotic or fancy birds with a tree trunk and foliage, and on the reverse, a bouquet of flowers. The double cover is also decorated with similar flowers. The Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama, has a similar creamware chocolate pot decorated with swags and entwined garlands of husk ornaments in the manner of James Giles.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2012.46 |
