Description:
English Staffordshire salt-glazed stoneware mug decorated with an applied medallion with a profile portrait of King George III (1738-1820) flanked by the initials "GR" and a variant of scratch blue decoration known as debased scratch blue, which was produced in England from about 1765 to the early 19th century. The tall mug has bands of reeding around the top and bottom; the body is decorated with loosely executed debased scratch blue foliage; and there is an applied strap handle. Around 1750 the decorative technique collectors now call "scratch blue" became popular. Simeon Shaw's "The History of the Staffordshire Potteries" (1829) gives an account of this process: "The Flowerers now scratched the jugs and tea ware, with a sharp pointed nail, and filled the interstices with ground zaffre [a mixture of cobalt ore and sand], in rude imitation of the unmeaning scenery on foreign porcelain; and this art the woman were instructed..." This technique did indeed imitate the more expensive blue and white porcelain, often depiciting stylized flowers and rouletted borders.
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location); Stoneware Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.351.1 |
