Owl Jug: C.252 & A-1928

Titles

Owl Jug

Maker(s)

Production: Unidentified Staffordshire Pottery

Entities

• Owl jug
• Cover

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware
• Slipware

Description

Earthenware, thrown in two parts, with applied handles, decorated with slip-trailing in two shades of brown and white, and lead-glazed

Notes

History note: George Stoner, Stoner & Evans, King Street, St James's Square, London, from whom purchased on 24 November 1915 (with white salt-glazed stoneware owl C.497 & A-1928 for £280), by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, 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

17th Century, Late
Circa 1680 - Circa 1700

Note

Slipware owl jugs are among the rarest forms of English pottery. Only fifteen are recorded. Their body forms the container for the liquor, probably ale, and their head is removable for use as a cup. Some have slip trailed decoration like this example, and others have feathered or combed two colour slip. There are examples in the British Museum (1887,0210.53 and 1887,0210.41), the Potteries Museum, at Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent (P.432). They may have been inspired by a German salt-glazed stoneware owl jug. These were being made in Cologne in the mid sixteenth century, but despite the vast quantities of brown salt-glazed stoneware bottles imported into England from the Rhineland, only one owl jug is known to have been imported and to have survived in an English collection. It has silver mounts round its neck and foot, and was given to the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Braziers in 1537 by the widow of William Vinyard, alias Seger, and still belongs to the Company. Nevertheless, although there is no proven link, it seems likely that more were imported, and that one of these might have inspired the Staffordshire versions at a later date. The form of the body and wings are reminiscent of a 16th century German jug in the V. & A., which has lost the cover which forms the head. (V & A inv. no. 821-1868) Owl jugs belong to a European tradition of zoomorphic ceramic vessels stretching back to the middle ages. Tin-glazed and painted owl jugs were made in Austria and the Tyrol in the 16th century, where they are said to have been made as prizes for archery competitions, but are less likely to have been brought to England. A rather fierce-looking, 16th century example is in the Museum für Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt (inv. no. 6271/108). They were also made in enamelled glass in Bohemia in the late 16th and early 17th century. An example dated 1582, with a restored cover and foot, was sold by Sotheby’s Olympia, on 18 July 2007, lot 69. Two more are known. The earliest, dated 1597, also lacking its cover, is in the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague. The other at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire (National Trust, inv. no. 3137), has a German inscription ‘An owl am I/All birds hate me’ is dated 1605.