Mug
Cambrian Pottery (Established in Swansea in 1764, the Cambrian Pottery reached its creative peak under the proprietorship of Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855), who ran the Pottery (with a break between 1817 and 1824) from 1802 to 1836. Lewis Weston Dillwyn was a natural scientist, antiquarian, Member of Parliament, magistrate and landowner whose intellectual interests drove the Cambrian Pottery to become one of the most ambitious and artistically accomplished British potteries of the early 19th century. While the porcelain manufactured in Swansea between 1814 and 1825 justifies its reputation as among the finest of British porcelains, the pottery produced under Dillwyn’s ownership between 1802 and about 1809 was at its best an equally impressive achievement, most particularly that made for sale in the Pottery’s Cambrian Warehouse in London 1806-1808, the context for which this supper service was most likely created.)
Mug, earthenware, rounded slightly spreading foot-rim, cylindrical sides divided into six panels by vertical incised lines, a band of moulded anthemions to the foot-rim and to the lip-rim, loop handle with overlapping foliate mouldings along its length, transfer-printed in purple with to the exterior sides of the mug the 'Ottoman' pattern comprising two panels enclosed within cartouches of scrolling foliage, one showing four deer in front of a towered building with a background of a lake and distant mountains, the other showing an elaborate fountain with to one side two figures, one on horseback, and to the other a camel-like animal, the two panels separated by an elaborate design of spreading foliage, garlands and scrolls, dentilled ribbon border to the exterior lip-rim, to the interior lip-rim a border composed of four ogee-topped panels showing respectively three deer, a Middle-Eastern style building, two swan-like birds and a landscape scene, border to the handle of a narrow purple band issuing short feathered lines on a stippled purple ground.
Creation/Production
Date: 1831-1850
Acquisition
Bequest, 10/12/1953
Measurements
Height
(cm): 7.6
diam
(cm): 8.5
Width
(cm): 11.2
Height
(in): 3
diam
(in): 3
Width
(in): 4
Techniques
jolleyed
forming
Applied Art
press-moulded
forming
Applied Art
assembled
forming
Applied Art
transfer-printed
decoration
Applied Art
glazed
decoration
Applied Art
Material
earthenware
glaze
