Description:
Buff, earthenware, thistle-shaped cup with plain strap handle, covered with white slip. Decorated with trailed and combed dark brown and white slip under a yellow, lead glaze. The neck initialed "EB" and dated "1703." The size and shape of this mug generally corresponds to examples of porcelain and stoneware capuchines—vessels used for the drinking of coffee or chocolate. The use of multiple types of slip decoration on this mug make it of particular interest. The potter has not only used a technique known as slip trailing to apply the letters and numbers and small white dots or “jewels” on the upper portion of the mug, but has also employed a method known as combing or feathering on the mug’s lower half. Accomplished through the manipulation of wet slip, the potter first trailed brown slip, in a series of parallel lines, onto the surface of the white slip. Next, a pointed tool was drawn vertically across the slip to create a combed effect. The mug is one of about 15 known examples that bear similar decoration, along with initials and dates. A portion of the neck has been damaged and repaired. Similar comb decorated, slipware fragments have been found in Boston, MA; a c. 1730 fragment was found in one of two 1720-1750 barrel privies behind a house on Unity Street in the North End. That piece was likely part of a posset pot.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2019.2 |
