Description:
English creamware cylindrical mug with a strap handle, decorated with a black transfer print of an American eagle with fifteen stars over the eagle with its outspread wings, facing right with a scroll with "E PLURIBUS UNUM" in its beak, a shield, and a sheaf of arrows in its right talon and olive branches in its left talon. The eagle is taken from the Great Seal of the United States adopted by the Continental Congress in 1782, but the positions of the arrows and olive branch are reversed and there are fifteen rather than thirteen stars. Transfer-printed creamwares and pearlwares of this design are commonly known as "Liverpool-type" ceramics. Jugs, plates, bowls, plaques, and mugs were often potted locally or produced in Staffordshire for the many transfer-printing establishments in Liverpool. Orders from Americans, especially ship captains, kept these printing businesses busy as they successfully used images designed to appeal to the sentiments, politics, and patriotism of Americans. Enoch Booth (c.1703-1773) of Tunstall, England, developed the fine, light-colored earthenware now known as creamware in the early 1740s using the various improvements in body, glaze, and firing; but it was Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) who perfected and successfully marketed the ceramic body. Wedgwood’s version of creamware resulted from many experiments with white clays and improved glazes; by 1762, he had developed a light, sturdy, refined, and yet inexpensive cream-colored earthenware body. Wedgwood described the new product as "a species of earthenware for the table, quite new in appearance, covered with rich and brilliant glaze, bearing sudden alterations of heat and cold, manufactured with ease and expedition, and consequently cheap." Middle-class consumers rushed to purchase creamware, bringing the popularity of alternative ceramics such as tin-glazed earthenware and salt-glazed stoneware to an end. In an effort to capture a segment of the creamware market, many English potteries also began to produce the ceramic; estimates suggest that more than 150 factories in England manufactured creamware. Unfortunately most early wares were not marked, making attribution to a particular factory difficult since mugs are found many of the manufacturers' Pattern Books such those of Wedgwood, James and Charles Whitehead, and the Leeds, Castleford, and the Don Potteries. Compare printed eagle to documented examples by Wood and Caldwell such as the jugs made for Boston china and glass firm Henshaw and Jarves, see Winterthur Museum collection.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.008 |
