Description:
Delft cuspidor, spittoon, spit or vomit pot with blue decoration. Tobacco can be consumed in one of three ways, smoking, snuffing, or chewing, and a cuspidor is crucial to chewing tobacco. Cuspidors come in two basic shapes, round and hexagonal, and usually include a wide rim to increase the chance of hitting the target. Small metal and ceramic cuspidors were produced for individual use from the end of the 17th through the 19th century; this example is based on a silver or pewter original, and resembles an example, dated 1747, in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Cuspidors found a ready market in the Netherlands; Chinese export porcelain cuspidors or quispedoren formed a sizeable part of the cargo of the Geldermalsen, a Dutch East India Company ship that sank in 1752. Although Amerindians chewed tobacco, the practice never became very popular with the English or their American colonists since chewing tobacco conflicted with genteel concepts of cleanliness, refinement, and respectability. Cuspidors also served a medical purpose. According to 18th century minutes of the London Hospital: "Dr. Dawson and the Apothecary, having recommended that a number of Pots be provided for each ward to prevent the patients from spitting against the Walls, and thereby preserving necessary cleanliness, Ordered that a dozen coarse earthenware spitting Pots be provided for each ward." Spitting was a wide spread practice until its health hazards were realized and the science of medical bacteriology and preventive medicine improved. The inner lip of the scalloped-edged wide rim is decorated with alternating trellis and stylized floral patterns; the attached handle with its scrolled terminal has dots and horizontal slashes; the sides have scrolls and floral sprays; and the base is hexagonal.
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+62.063 |
