Images(6)

Chamber Pot

Dateca. 1780

OriginEngland, Staffordshire or Yorkshire

MediumLead-glazed earthenware (pearlware)

DimensionsOH: 5 5/16"; OL: 9 5/8" (handle to body); OD: 8 1/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2021-182

DescriptionLead-glazed earthenware chamber pot: low foot with in-stepped base supports circular body with a short rolled rim. Ear-shaped extruded handle applied to one side. The body exterior decorated in under-glaze blue painted with the “house pattern.” The rim is decorated with a blue floral sprig and bellflower vine and a concentric blue line.
Label TextAlthough a rare above-ground survival today, inventories, accounts, and archaeology reveal the prevalence and importance of chamber pots and related forms in the 18th and 19th centuries. This chamber pot is the only intact pearlware example decorated with the house pattern currently known; and it must have been a treasured object to survive to the present in its current relatively unscathed condition. It closely relates to equally rare fragments of similarly decorated chamber pots recovered archaeologically in Alexandria, Virginia.