Dry drug jar

Date1750-1780

MediumTin-glazed earthenware (delft)

DimensionsH: 7"; DIAM: 5 1/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1967-145

DescriptionCylindrical jar with slight neck and everted rim. White tin glaze decorated in blue with standard cherub cartouche and inscribed "LINI ARCAEL." Base glazed; a 4 in blue under glaze.
Label TextLinimentum Arcaei, an ointment made from gum elemi, lard, and turpentine, was used to clean wounds. It was named for the Spanish physician Francesco Arcaeus (1493-1567).

Cylindrical drug jars are far less common than those of globular form. The shape may have been derived from jars encircled with blue lines, which have a less defined rim (such as CWF accessions 1952-499 and 1956-420). More likely, these cylindrical jars were made as a set with straight-sided wet examples resembling glass bottles such as accessions 1981-185, 1 and 2. The painting on the present jar and those bottles is very similar, and all three pieces have a numeral (the same numeral) on the bottom, which is rare. This suggests that if they are not from the same set, they may at least have been made in the same factory at about the same time and decorated by the same painter. Although most recorded cylindrical examples are dry cherubs like this one, there is a wet trumpeting cherub (accession 1967-20) and a dry songbird and several pill-sized cherub jars have been recorded.
Inscribed"LINI ARCAEL" inscribed on face. The numeral 4 inscribed underglaze on base.
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceTilley & Co., London