Description:
Creamware mug decorated with a black printed mug titled "Old Women Ground Young" over a scene of old women climbing a ladder into a large hopper while a man turns a crank and the women appear young as they emerge from the bottom of the hopper, with young men assisting and giving them romantic attentions. The inscription below reads, "Good lackaday cries out the grinder, I shan't want work, indeed I find sir / This grinding is a bonny trade, my fortune shortly will be made." This popular subject with its sexual connotation, which is found on many ceramic forms, is also called "The Miller's Maid" and "The Wonderful Mill." Robert Sayer (1725-1794) and John Bennett's 1775 catalogue included a print entitled, "Old Women and old men ground young" contained in their list of "TURN-UPS for the Entertainment of Children" and there are also versions which depicts old men being ground young. In 1805, 13 year-old George Cruikshank, who became a well-known British caricaturist and book illustrator, produced a version in which men and woman are ground alternatively, which was also copied. The British Library has an earlier version (12316.a.13) of this scene, which is the frontispiece to a small publication titled "The Merry Dutch Miller: and New Invented Windmill" printed by E. Crouch in London in 1672 for F. Coles, T. Vere, and J. Wright. The full title is "The Merry Dutch Miller: and New Invented Windmill. Wherewith he undertaketh to grind all sorts of Woman, as the Old, Decreped, Wrinkled, Blear ey'd, Lond Nosed, Blind, Lame, Scolds, Jealous, Angry, Poor, Drunkards, Whores, Sluts, or all others whatsoever. They shall come out of his Mill Young, Active, Pleasant, Handsome, Wise, Loving, Vertuous and Rich; Without any Deformity and just suiteable to their Husband's Humours. / 'The Rich for Money and the Poor for nothing. Compsed Dialogue wise, for the Recreation of all those that are inclined to be merry, and may serve to pass awau an hour in a Cold inter night (without an great offence) by a good fire side. / The miller and the Mill you see / How throng'd with Customers they be: / Then bring your Wives unto the Mill, / And Young for Old you shall have still."
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2009.31.1 |
