Hunting scene jug: C.1264-1928

Titles

Hunting scene jug

Maker(s)

Pottery: William & John Turner (Probably)
Turners, Abbott and Newbury (Possibly)
Silversmith: Tibbitts, J (Possibly)

Entities

• Jug

Categories

• Stoneware
• Sprigged stoneware

Description

Cream stoneware, decorated with applied sprigs and brown wash; silver mount.

Round bodied, with short, straight neck, pulled lip and applied handle. Sprig decorated on the body under the lip with a hunting scene, with four men, hounds and a tree and inn sign to the right, and on either side of the body a tree. Underneath the scenes, the body is circled by impressed gadrooning, overlaid with two thin horzontal bands. The neck has turned horizontal ridges; it is covered on the outside with a thin dark brown wash which continues over the upper handle. The handle is near horizontal at the top, sharply angled and foliated where it joins the body. A thin raised line runs around the midpoint of the silver mount. The interior is glazed. The underside is very slightly recessed.

Notes

History note: Bought at Sotheby’s on February 20. 1911, lot 36, by Mr S. Fenton for Dr Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge. Lot contained two jugs for £1.12; Dr Glaisher considered this jug cost 16 shillings.

Legal notes

Dr. J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest, 1928

Place(s) associated

• Longton ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England
• Sheffield

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

George III
18th Century, Late
Circa 1790 CE - Circa 1800 CE

Note

Stoneware jugs were a common domestic item, used for water, beer milk and other liquids which might now be kept in bottles, cans or plastic jars. In the 1790s, the Turners introduced jugs and mugs like this example, with ribbed, brown-glazed necks and sharply modelled sprigs - designs formed in small plaster, clay or brass moulds and applied to leather hard clay. The jugs were made with and without a silver mount, and sometimes with a hinged lid.The style was soon imitated by other businesses, and other businesses, notably Adams and Spode, are known to have bought up moulds in the 1806 Turner bankrupcy sale. From around the mid 1820s, however, such jugs were more often made in two-piece relief moulds. There are several examples in the Fitzwilliam Collection.

The mark on the silver mount may be that registered by a Sheffield silversmith , J.Tibbitts, in 1778.

William and John Turner (often known as Turner of Lane End) ran the family business, started by their father in the 1760s as Turner & Banks, from 1792-1803. They continued as Turner(s), Glover & Simpson until bankrupcy in 1806, and thereafter with various smaller potworks until 1829. They experimented widely and became one of the largest manufacturers of dry-bodied stoneware, making jasper, white stoneware and caneware, specialising in a range of lidded pie dishes which mimic pastry in the shape of pies or animals (see C.29-2013).