Punch Bowl

Dateca. 1720

MediumPorcelain, hard-paste

DimensionsDiam: 10 1/2"; H: 4 9/16"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1968-52

DescriptionCircular bowl with foot ring; decorated in underglaze blue and overglaze red and gold; exterior: oval floral design below floral band; interior rim: same floral band as on exterior; Interior bottom: large floral spray.
Label TextPunchbowls like this were the heart of eighteenth-century entertaining, forming and maintaining friendships and important social and business connections. Both the drink and the word come from India, “punch” meaning ‘five’, the traditional number of ingredients: water, sugar, rum and other spirits, spices, and lemon. Hosts were judged by their recipes as well as by their conduct in the punch ceremony and the equipment they employed. Punch bowls were produced in many materials and a broad range of sizes.

This Chinese export porcelain punchbowl is decorated in the Imari style, adapted from Japanese porcelains in the mid-1700s. The large iron-red enamel peony and lotus blooms, small blossoms, and leaves were added to the blue decoration in a second firing and the gilding in a third, making this style more expensive than the more common blue and white examples. References to "red" or "red and white" bowls and punchbowls appear in many estate inventories and probate records in the Virginia Tidewater and throughout colonial America. Williamsburg store owner William Prentis owned four such bowls at the time of his death and Chinese Imari is also well-known from archaeological excavations elsewhere around the town.