Images(9)

Posset Pot

Dateca. 1720

OriginEngland, Bristol (probably)

MediumTin-glazed earthenware (delft)

DimensionsH: 13 1/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1965-123a&b

DescriptionSquat baluster-shaped pot with short foot ring, S-shaped tubular spout, and two handles with divided scroll terminals. Domed cover with similar handles and an acorn knop topped by a bird; applied snakes on spout and handles. Bluish tin glaze decorated in blue, mixed green, and red with complex-shaped reserves containing stylized floral sprays; blue dashes on spout and handles; snakes and bird in blue.
Label TextSnakes appeared as part of the handle treatment on elaborate posset pots as early as the 1680s and continued to the beginning of the eighteenth century. They apparently developed from a more organic strapwork device (see CWF accession 1977-223). A birdlike variation of this form appears on the cover of a punch bowl at CWF (accession 1961-135). A blue and white posset pot in the Morgan collection is very similar in form, particularly the cover with its bird finial perched on an acorn-shaped knop. This relates in decoration to a posset pot with a missing cover dated 1696 at the Victoria and Albert Museum and to a punch bowl (CWF accession 1951-168). The same colors and pattern appear on a privately owned covered dish considered London because of its shape, so an attribution to that area cannot be completely discounted.
InscribedNo
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceJoseph Vizcarra, Lombard, IL