Bartmann Bottle

Date1625-1650

MediumStoneware, salt-glazed, brown

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 x 5 3/16 x 5 3/16in. (21.6 x 13.2 x 13.2cm)

Credit LineGift of the William Tice Family

Object number1984-280

DescriptionBrown salt-glazed stoneware Bartmann bottle of globular shape with wire-trimmed foot; tapered neck ending in a molded rim. The neck slightly slumping from firing. Molded face of a bearded man opposite missing handle and above an applied oval, ten-petal, double-rosette medallion. Heavy orange-peel or tiger-ware glaze.
Label TextThis bartmann bottle, embellished with an undated and seemingly unremarkable ten-petal, double-rosette medallion emphasizes the expansive trade in Rhenish stoneware. Around 8 1/2 inches tall, it was found in the vicinity of what had once been the site of a seventeenth-century free school in Hampton, Virginia.

Importantly, the object parallels archaeological evidence in Maryland and at least one intact example in Rotterdam. The fragment from Maryland is a small floral medallion excavated from a cellar pit in use from about 1660 to 1670 on a property in Anne Arundel County occupied by Quaker planter Thomas Homewood and his family. The excavated medallion and the medallion on the bottle in Colonial Williamsburg's collection are identical to that on another Bartmann bottle that was recovered in Rotterdam during post-World War II reconstrucion and is now in the van Beuningen-de Vriese Collection there. The Rotterdam example has been dated 1650-1675.
ProvenanceWilliam C. Tice, Hampton, VA

Exhibition(s)