Description:
English delft colander bowl with dark blue decoration. How these bowls were used is still debated, especially with their often elaborate decoration. For example, some have suggested that they were used to hold cut flowers; and others that they were used to make fruit punch by setting the colander in a larger bowl and adding fruit, sugar, and spices, over which hot water and wine were poured, which then drained out the side hole into the larger bowl. However, since the concave shape of the top appears impractical for holding flowers and hot water would craze and flake the tin glaze, it seems more likely that they were used to drain or strain foods such as vegetables, fruits, and salads. Scholars have also speculated that these bowls could have been used to grow watercress. An advertisement that lends support to that theory appears in the Boston Gazette for October 15, 1751, listing delftware "mint stands." A possibly related form appeared in the 1771 inventory of the Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg, Virginia as "1 Delft Sallad Dish." Another period term could possibly be "cress-bowl." An American advertisment of 1781 offers "Sallad Dishes and Fish Drains," the juxaposition suggesting a similar purpose, that of separating food from water or the liquid with which it was cooked. These sources suggest contemporary terms for what we now refer to as colander bowls. The fixed strainer has one large hole surrounded with stylized leaves, double curl pattern, and a thick blue band; and three rings of smaller holes. The rim is decorated with a tight stiff leaf pattern, and stylized leaves and petals in a geometric design connected with swags in the same stiff leaf pattern. There is a band of alternating flower sprigs and "X's" with four circles between the holes between the inner two rings of holes. The exterior is decorated with basketweave panels, large flower sprays, and scrolling foliate sprays. There is a shaped opening on one side below the strainer to pour out liquid collected in the bowl; the opening edge is decorated with a large flower and flying insect on the left. The bowl sits on an applied foot ring. According to Jonathan Horne, 1/23/95, the colander bowl is late London delft.
Subjects:
Pottery; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+57.197 |
