Description:
Chinese export porcelain pitcher with lid decorated with flowers, butterflies, and swags in blue, green, purple, pink, yellow, orange, and gold. The lid has a blue foo dog finial; the ridged strap handle is highlighted with blue. There is a matching bowl, HD 69.0045A. The decoration on this pitcher and bowl set reflects the restrained neoclassical style common on Chinese export porcelain from 1790 to 1810. The surface of the porcelain is kept relatively plain by the addition of a series of decorative bands, a meandering border, and scattered butterflies and flowers. Unlike punch bowls, wash basins have their main decoration on the inside where it would be most visible. The pitcher associated with the bowl is lightly molded with ribs, suggesting a barrel, and might be taken for a cider jug if the bowl did not survive. Ceramics played a central role in the practice of personal washing and hygiene. For one's daily cleansing the usual 18th-century method involved a bowl of water and a towel, with washing rarely extending beyond the face and hands. The average wash basin was no larger than a mixing bowl, and could accomodate hand and face washing, but little else. In the 18th century, greater emphasis was placed on a tidy appearance than on the reality of cleanliness. Ceramic wash bottles and basins were common sights in many upper class 18th-century bed chambers, but only rarely have they survived to the present. Both pitchers and bowls were usually decorated in the same pattern, Matching examples, however, do not seem to have been made earlier than the second quarter of the 18th century.
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location); polychrome; Porcelain Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+69.0045B%2FC |
