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The Battle for the Breeches
Production: Unidentified Staffordshire Potter
Press-moulded earthenware dish decorated on the interior in two shades of brown slip with the 'Battle of the Breeches' surrounded by two border patterns, and lead-glazed
Dark buff earthenware, press-moulded over a hump mould to produce a design in relief on the interior, and impressed round the edge with a striated stick or shell to create a pie crust effect. Two suspension holes were pierced at the top before firing.The interior was coated with cream slip, and slip-trailed in very dark brown and reddish brown slips before lead-glazing. The exterior is undecorated. The dish is decorated in the middle with a circular medallion enclosing a rectangular frame occupied by a man and woman fighting over a pair of breeches. The space around it is filled with a scale pattern. On the sides there is a border of adjacent domed circles with a reddish brown background below and a dark brown background above, and round the edge, a narrow border of small circles in squares.
History note: Mr C. F. Fowler, 8 and 10 Castle Road, Scarborough; sent by him on approval and bought for £7.10s.0d. on April 30, 1924 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge
Dr J. W. L. Glaisher Bequest
Diameter: 25.8 cm
Height: 4 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928-12-07) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr
17th Century, Late
Circa
1660
CE
-
1700
CE
The central design of 'The Battle for the Breeches' was probably derived from a woodcut which appeared on numerous broadside ballads during the seventeenth century, for example, 'The Jolly Widdower: or A Warning for Batchelors' in the Pepys Collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge. (The Pepys Ballads, facsimilie, vol. I) The woodcut on that example is almost the same size as the rectangle on the dish, and the figures are transposed, which suggests that the potter may have traced his design from a similar woodcut onto the mould, resulting in a transposed image.
Decoration
composed of
slip
( cream, very dark brown, and reddish brown)
Inside Surface
composed of
lead-glaze
Inside
buff Earthenware
Press-moulded : Buff earthenware, press-moulded over a hump mould to produce a design in relief on the inside; impressed round the edge with a striated stamp or shell to create a pie crust effect; coated on the inside with cream slip, and slip trailed in very dark brown and reddish brown in the rectangle, and background of the borders before lead-glazing.
Inscription present: rectangular white paper stick on label with cut corners, and a dark Prussian blue line round the edges
Accession number: C.183-1928
Primary reference Number: 72728
Old object number: 4398
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
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IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "The Battle for the Breeches" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/72728 Accessed: 2025-03-25 17:49:32
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/72728
|title=The Battle for the Breeches
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-03-25 17:49:32|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-72728
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa37/C_183_1928_dc2.jpg"
alt="The Battle for the Breeches"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">The Battle for the Breeches</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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