Beer jug with greyhound handle: C.48-1981

Titles

Beer jug with greyhound handle

Maker(s)

Production: Phillips & Bagster
Modeller: Abington, James Leonard (Perhaps)

Entities

• Jug
• Beer jug

Categories

• Stoneware
• Smear-glazed stoneware
• Relief moulded

Description

Relief moulded, smear-glazed, stoneware jug.

Press-moulded mustard yellow stoneware, circular in plan, with bowed sides, sharp shoulder and cylindrical neck expanding at the front to form an upward-tilting spout. The handle is in the form of a greyhound with its front paws resting on the rim and supporting its head and its hind legs and tail resting on the body below the shoulder. The body is decorated in relief with hunting scenes: on one side, hounds attack a boar; on the other, hounds attack a stag. Above, there is a scalloped border and round the neck there is a wavy hop stem. The interior is fully glazed and glossy. The underside is recessed and smear-glazed.

Notes

History note: Countess Shelagh S. Rietberg, Cambridge

Legal notes

Given by Countess Shelagh Rietberg

Place(s) associated

• Hanley ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1981-10-12) by Rietberg, Shelagh, Countess

Dating

19th Century, Early#
Circa 1819 CE - 1823 CE

Note

Relief moulded jugs (some with ceramic or metal lids), in a wide variety of design, were popular in mid-19th Century homes, where they were used for water, beer, milk and other liquids which might now be kept in bottles, cans or plastic jars. The smear-glazing makes the most of the way that colour-stained clays show off crisply-moulded ornament, whilst the stoneware would be durable in an everyday setting. There are several examples in the Fitzwilliam Collection. The hops around the neck of this jug suggest that it was intended for beer.

This is one of the very earliest designs of this type of jug. On other surviving examples, the makers’ name is impressed on the collars of the dogs hunting the boar, as well as on that of the dog-handle. Phillips and Bagster was a partnership formed in 1818, the partners being Jacob Phillips and John Denton Bagster. From c.1823-28, the business continued under the latter’s sole name and produced, inter alia, more examples of this jug. A version with some variations to the hunting scenes and moulding was also made by William Ridgway & Co, which took over Church Works in 1831. James Leonard Abington (also recorded as Leonard James Abington), who joined Phillips & Bagster in 1819 and worked as designer and modeller for all three businesses, perhaps produced this design. Abington was also a Baptist minister, editor of the Pottery Mercury and helped found the local Pottery Philosophical Society, where he lectured on a wide variety of science topics. He later became Ridgway’s partner in Ridgway & Abington.