Description:
English creamware teapot press-molded in the "fruit basket" pattern picked out in green, grey, yellow, and brown, made by Staffordshire potter William Greatbatch (1735-1813). Greatbatch was a well-known Staffordshire potter, who also worked for Thomas Whieldon and Josiah Wedgwood as a supplier of molds and ceramic wares. According to Barker and Halfpenny: "This is an extremely common creamware type, often attributed to Leeds, Whieldon and Wedgwood. Examples occur with a range of handle and spouts, and yet all can be now shown to have been produced by Greatbatch. There are no pieces known which might have been produced by any other potter; every vessel form identified has been recovered from the Greatbatch site. This type appears to have been produced over a period of nearly twenty years, with its greatest popularity being in the years 1765-1770. The details of the vessels' modelling do not change, a fact which points to the use, over many years, of just one set of block moulds. The earlier basket of fruit wares have a darker cream-coloured glaze and basketwork handles or spouts are typical. The later examples of this type have a much lighter glaze, which has a hint of green, and indented-loop handles are the most common type used." Most fruit basket wares have some coloring, painted on to the wares when they were in biscuit state; the colors were applied underglaze in the form of metallic oxides which flowed when glazed and fired. This teapot's cover has a green flower finial over a band of tightly-woven basketweave and the molded, scrolled tops of the brown and green handles. The pot is encircled by molded, assorted fruits and leaves piled into the basket, occasionally spilling over the sides, and the basket handles rise up the sides continuing to the lid; over a diagonal trelliswork panels; over a band of horizontal basketweave over the flat base. The basketweave spout has acanthus leaves encircling its base, and the molded C-shape, basketwork handle has a leaf terminal.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.266.1 |
