Description:
Pearlware punch pot, composed of straight sides, applied strap handle, and cylindrical straight spout, circular domed cover with depressed knop, cover and pot painted in underglazed cobalt blue in a chinoiserie landscape design of pagodas, fence, rocks, water, and trees. Painted on the exterior, “ARCHDEACON/ CLUB/ BRAMSGROVE.”
Label Text:
Produced beginning in the mid-18th century, punch pots—designed to serve hot punch—are comparable in size to hot water kettles but follow the basic form of a teapot. Potteries made them in a variety of ceramic bodies, including white salt-glazed stoneware, red unglazed stoneware, blackware, creamware, and porcelain. Due to their size and weight when full, as one author writes, “perhaps the server gained additional support by holding the long, extended spout” of the pot when serving punch. Some later examples of punch pots, in fact, possess an extra handle at the front to facilitate pouring. Referring to punch pots, cultural historian Karen Harvey notes, “these were large and often hand-painted items, made to order and extremely expensive.” The inscriptions on surviving examples suggest that many were created as gifts to individuals or used during a variety of special occasions and events. Some pots were also used in conjunction with sporting events, including fox hunts, as evinced by one Worcester porcelain punch pot with an image of a fox painted at the base of its spout and the phrase “TALLY HO.” Inscriptions on other examples, such as this pot with chinoiserie decoration, reveal their use in local organizations or clubs. The “Archdeacon Club Bramsgrove,” painted on the side of this pot, may have been a women’s club based in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England. The teapot was mentioned in a Worcestershire newspaper in 1903, which explained: THE Messenger had got hold of a photograph of an eight-pint teapot bearing the words Archdeacon Club, Bromsgrove, dating, it was thought, from 1780 to 1800. Extensive inquiries had failed to throw any light on the club. It may have been one of the many women's clubs which proliferated at that time, the paper said, possibly named after the Hon St Andrew St John Archdeacon of Worcester and one time vicar of St John's Church, in Bromsgrove.
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+2023.17.2 |
