Description:
Black basalt was a popular style of English neo-classical style stoneware in the late 18th- early 19th century. Basalt was an imitation of the naturally occuring basalt rock found in Egyptian sculpture. Josiah Wedgwood and his competitors created basalt objects in ornamental vases and tea wares. Supposedly women liked how the black ceramic showed off the whiteness of their hands. Barrel-shaped black basalt cream pot with pointed and molded snip or spout with foliate decoration and a suggestion of a shell edge on the rim and applied molded strap handle with foliate decoration at the top, impressed mark "CC" at base of handle, cream pot body is decorated with sprigged decoration applied in a band to the center, vases are connected by foliate garlands to ribbons, the pot once had a lid which is now missing, the base of the pot is engine turned with vertical fine reeding, base of pot is impressed marked with "Birch" in center. Even if this pot was not marked "Birch," the presence of molding at the spout base, and the reeding interrupted by a plain horizontal band identify it as a product of the Edmund Birch factory. This cream pot is missing its lid.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2013.40.1 |
