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| Home | Articles | Peace, Plenty, and Independence: Selections from a Collection of English Ceramics made for the American Market, 1770-1820 |
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by Ronald W. Fuchs II
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This year the Delaware Antique Show features a loan exhibition from the finest private collection of Liverpool jugs and other English pottery made for the American market. Made in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, the creamware jugs, punch bowls, teapots and mugs are decorated with printed and painted designs that celebrate the new United States through depictions of her heroes, victories, symbols and slogans, and especially her ships.
America was an important market for English potters, and following American independence in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, potters eagerly decorated products with images and slogans to appeal to American customers. This was especially true of potters in Liverpool, a major port that had close trading ties with America.1
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The potters produced a wide range of decorated wares embellished with overglaze printed decoration featuring generic ships with American flags, eagles, and other patriotic emblems and slogans, and portraits of American presidents and heroes. These wares were designed to appeal to merchants looking for ceramics for their American customers and to ship captains and sailors looking for souvenirs of their voyages. Designs were inspired by images found on contemporary prints, cartoons, passports and ship's papers, and even paper currency. Using handpainted overglaze enamel, potters and independent decorators also customized pieces with a ship's name or initials, or even created original designs incorporating ship portraits, coats of arms, and specific structures.
It was his love of American history, and especially America's rich maritime history, that attracted the collector to these pieces. Built over the past fifty-five years the collection is nearly comprehensive, containing almost all the known American printed designs, and is especially rich in rare handpainted images. Together, they provide a window onto the history of the young United States of America.
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Jug, Liverpool, England, 1796-1800. Creamware with black printed and handpainted overglaze enamel colors.
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The inscription on this jug, "PEACE, PLENTY AND INDEPENDENCE," symbolized the hopes and dreams of the citizens of the new United States. Its simple but eloquent message is reinforced by the figures of Peace, destroying the tools of war, and Plenty, holding a cornucopia. They flank the central medallion that is surmounted by a cannon and an American eagle, representing the military might that helped win independence.
Eagles, flags, and patriotic slogans were among the most popular emblems to appear on ceramics made specifically for the American market, so this particular design is not uncommon. But the jug is rare because of its brilliant enamel coloring and because it probably belonged to Joseph Moseley of Salem, Massachusetts, the captain of the Grand Turk. The initials "JPM" appear under the spout, and a printed view of a ship with the inscription "Grand-Turk" is on the opposite side. There were two eighteenth-century ships of this name, both of which belonged to the Salem merchant Elias Hasket Derby. This is probably the second, which was launched in 1791 in Salem and, at 124 feet long and 560 tons, was the largest ship built in America at that time. Moseley was her captain from 1793 until 1795.2
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Jug, Liverpool, England, probably the Herculaneum Pottery, 1803-1809. Creamware printed in black and handpainted in overglaze enamel colors.
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This monumental jug has everything you would want to find on a jug and more; it bears the name of a ship, the name of its master, its home port, and the name of the merchant house associated with it. The Warren was built in Warren, Rhode Island, in 1795 and Benjamin Hammond was its captain or master from 1803 to 1809. Cropper, Benson and Co. was one of Liverpool's leading merchant houses and export agents, and it is possible that, like other large creamware and pearlware jugs, this jug was used as an advertisement in their counting house.3
One of the finest jugs in the collection, it is also a testament to research and perseverance. This jug was illustrated in the December 1901 issue of Old China Magazine with a query from its then owner, Charles Arthur Carlisle from South Bend, Indiana. The present owner found the jug by calling all of the Carlisles in South Bend until he found it in the possession of a descendent living in Texas. At the time its owner did not want to sell. The collector maintained contact with her over the next fifteen years, until she decided that his passion for the jug made him its rightful next owner.
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Jug, Liverpool, England, 1792-1795. Creamware painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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This extraordinary jug with its rare view of Boston in the late eighteenth century is one of the most significant in the collection. The handpainted decoration depicts George and Peter Cade's ropewalk at the base of Beacon Hill. In the foreground is the long, narrow covered walk where fibers were braided into rope. The Cade brothers bought the 900' by 24' parcel of land in 1792, though it is not known whether there was a pre-existing ropewalk or if they built the structure themselves. The ropewalk closed in 1805, and the land was redeveloped for housing. The column seen atop Beacon Hill was erected in 1790 to commemorate the American Revolution and was removed in 1811 when the hill was regraded.4
The jug was probably made to celebrate the establishment of the ropewalk, and was almost certainly based on a drawing. As the Cades were active in the maritime trade and no doubt knew many captains and shipowners, it would have been easy for them to find someone to commission the jug for them in Liverpool. Its bold inscription, advertising AMERICAN MANUFACTURE and providing the ropewalk's location and products, suggests that the jug was designed to serve as an advertisement.
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Jug, Liverpool, England, possibly the Herculaneum Pottery, 1800-1807. Creamware printed in black and handpainted in overglaze enamel colors.
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This jug shows George Washington in all his military splendor with the accompanying inscription, "WASHINGTON IN HIS GLORY." He stands beside his horse, probably Blueskin, one of the two chargers he rode during the Revolution. The other figure probably represents Billy Lee, the enslaved African who served Washington during the war.
Washington's commanding presence on the battlefield helped assure his fame and he was often depicted in his role as a military leader. This image may have been inspired by Thomas Cheesman's 1796 print based on John Trumbull's General Washington at Trenton (circa 1792), which shows Washington standing next to his horse and holding a spyglass.5 The portrait on the jug is posthumous; on the reverse side is a printed memorial inscribed "WASHINGTON IN GLORY AMERICAN IN TEARS." Following Washington's death in 1799 memorials and commemorative images appeared on a wide range of objects, including no fewer than fourteen different designs on transfer-printed jugs.6
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Teapot, Liverpool, England, possibly Leeds, circa 1775. Creamware painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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This teapot, inscribed with a short poem or toast calling for "Freedom for the Slave," is one of the earliest objects to be decorated with an antislavery message. The poem appears to have been excerpted from The Review, a much longer poem written by the minor English poet Richard Duke and published in 1717 sometime after his death. Though Duke probably did not intend his work to be used to promote abolition, the lines were adopted by antislavery activists who began to organize in the 1770s.
The tea table, which was the focus of much entertainment in the eighteenth century, was seen as an appropriate place to voice abolitionist sentiments. One early antislavery poem, by William Cowper (1731-1800), was titled The Negro's Complaint: A Subject for Conversation and Reflection at the Tea Table.7 This poem appears on a small number of pieces of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century ceramics. Though incredibly rare, their presence reflects not only a growing number of abolitionists who used objects to promote their cause, but also the abolitionist sentiments of many English potters; Josiah Wedgwood, for instance, was one of the founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
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The Delaware Antique Show opens with a preview party November 9 and runs November 10-12 at the Chase Center at the Riverfront in Wilmington, Delaware. Proceeds from the show, which is in its forty-third year, benefit Winterthur's educational programs.
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Ronald W. Fuchs II is associate curator of ceramics for the Leo and Doris Hodroff Collection at Winterthur Museum and Gardens, Delaware.
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| 1. English potters also produced wares specifically designed for the Dutch, German, French, and Russian export markets.
2. Samuel Morrison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 (Boston, NE University Press, 1979), 96.
3. Sharon D. Greene, "Oversize Staffordshire Jugs," in The Magazine Antiques (January 1996): 192-201.
4. Allen Chamberlain, Beacon Hill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), 220, 255.
5. Wendy Wick, George Washington: An American Icon; The Eighteenth-Century Graphic Portraits (Washington D.C.: National Portrait Gallery, 1982), 49-51.
6. Robert McCauley, Liverpool Transfer Designs on Anglo-American Pottery (Portland, ME: The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1942), 83-93.
7. William Cowper, The Negro's Complaint: A Subject for Conversation and Reflection at the Tea Table. [1800?]
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