Description:
English delft colander bowl decorated in dark blue with six reserves with floral sprays around the sides. How these bowls were used is still debated, especially with their often elaborate decoration. For example, some have suggested that they were used to hold cut flowers; and others that they were used to make fruit punch by setting the colander in a larger bowl and adding fruit, sugar, and spices, over which hot water and wine were poured, which then drained out the side hole into the larger bowl. However, since the concave shape of the top appears impractical for holding flowers and hot water would craze and flake the tin glaze, it seems more likely that they were used to drain or strain foods such as vegetables, fruits, and salads. Scholars have also speculated that these bowls could have been used to grow watercress. An advertisement that lends support to that theory appears in the Boston Gazette for October 15, 1751, listing delftware "mint stands." A possibly related form appeared in the 1771 inventory of the Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg, Virginia as "1 Delft Sallad Dish." Another period term could possibly be "cress-bowl." An American advertisment of 1781 offers "Sallad Dishes and Fish Drains," the juxaposition suggesting a similar purpose, that of separating food from water or the liquid with which it was cooked. These sources suggest contemporary terms for what we now refer to as colander bowls. The fixed strainer has one large hole surrounded by four rings of smaller holes, and is decorated with a trellis pattern around the rim and an outer band of scrolls over a geometric design like tuffs of grass joined by blue bands between the holes of each ring. There is a shaped rectangular opening on one side below the strainer to pour out liquid collected in the bowl. The bowl sits on an applied foot ring. The owner's label on the base reads "A- 928/AHSX"; and there is a modern label for "ANTHONY S. WERNEKE/ FINE ANTIQUES/ #6-4/ 0911".
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2002.68.6 |
