Jug: GL.C.45-1928

Maker(s)

Pottery: Lucas's Pottery

Entities

• Jug
• Slipware

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware

Description

Red earthenware, with incised and inlaid decoration in white slip under pale yellow lead-glaze. Bulbous with flattened sides, small cylindrical neck and reeded loop handle. On one side is a rough, side profile of a head, and on the other, the initials and date 'J+L/1796 in a rounded panel with flat lower edge.

Notes

History note: George Jennings, artist, Walberswick, Suffolk, who bought it in 1881 at Bury St Edmunds; purchased by Messrs Jolley of Cambridge; purchased for £3 on 16 February 1911 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928-12-07) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

18th Century, Late
George III
Production date: dated AD 1796

Note

When acquired by Glaisher, the initials on the jug were mistakenly associated with a Jabez Lucas who with his wife, Mary, were thought to have run a pottery in Ely. No documentary evidence has been found for a Jabez Lucas. At the date when this jug was made there was a pottery in Ely which had been run by Richard Lucas since 1783. His wife Mary, had a son, John Race Lucas, who took over the pottery on his father's death in 1812 at the age of twenty-nine. So it seems that the initials were those of the person who commissioned the jug, and not those of the maker.