English Stoneware Pottery Redware Coffeepot

About the Item

English Stoneware Pottery Redware Stoneware Engine Turned Coffeepot, Staffordshire, Circa 1765 A Staffordshire redware stoneware coffeepot and cover with an engine-turned body and cover. The cover with an acorn finial. The spout in the form of a bird's head with a molded leaf to either side of the base of the spout. Mark: Impressed pseudo Chinese chop mark. Dimensions: 9 3/4 inches high x 8 1/2 inches x 5 inches deep. Reference: See a glazed redware example at the Chipstone Foundation where the inspiration for the shape is discussed. The Early Renaissance Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo (c.1443-1516) is generally credited with the earliest consistent use of balusters in Europe. His designs influenced others, including Michelangelo (1475-1564), who modified the earlier baluster design to create the familiar vasiform shape that is narrow on top and swells at the bottom. The form became a ubiquitous motif in the eighteenth century, appearing in architecture, silver holloware, and turned furniture elements.[1] It also informed the design of many eighteenth-century ceramic vessels, including coffeepots. The design had practical advantages. Besides increasing the vessel’s capacity, the baluster shape also provided physical stability to the vessel—an important consideration when serving a hot beverage. After about 1760, red earthenware copies of baluster-shaped silver coffeepots proliferated. With the increased use of engine-turning lathes in the pottery industry by the late 1760s, it became possible to add incised surface patterns in nearly unlimited variations, thereby broadening the market for fine red earthenware vessels. The body of this coffeepot was turned on a wheel, allowed to dry, then placed on the oscillating headstock of an engine-turning lathe. The repeat motion of a multi-bladed tool cut bands of wavy and zigzag parallel lines into the body. These geometric patterns were an explicit break from the decorative vocabulary of Chinoiserie that had dominated English pottery since Chinese porcelains were first imported in the seventeenth century and with the Rococo style. The comparative restraint of this decoration signals the beginnings of a more widespread interest in linear ornament, which was to become a hallmark of the emerging Neoclassical style. (Ref: NY10356-nrrr)

Dimensions:

Height: 9.75 in (24.77 cm)Width: 8.5 in (21.59 cm)Depth: 5 in (12.7 cm)

Style:

Georgian (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Pottery,Stoneware

Place of Origin:

England

Period:

Mid-18th Century

Date of Manufacture:

1765