Object Details
- Description
- This transfer printed creamware pitcher is decorated with a maritime print on one side and a print celebrating the new Liberty of the United States on the other side. The maritime design shows a ship under sail. The other side shows three men, likely George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, clasping hands and holding a liberty pole. A scroll above reads “Union to the People of America” and beneath “Civil and Religious Liberty to all Mankind.”
- This pitcher is part of the McCauley collection of American themed transfer print pottery. There is no mark on the pitcher to tell us who made it, but it is characteristic of wares made in large volume for the American market in both Staffordshire and Liverpool between 1790 and 1820. Pitchers of this shape, with a cream colored glaze over a pale earthenware clay, known as Liverpool type, were the most common vessels to feature transfer prints with subjects commemorating events and significant figures in the early decades of United States’ history. Notwithstanding the tense relationship between Britain and America, Liverpool and Staffordshire printers and potters seized the commercial opportunity offered them in the production of transfer printed earthenwares celebrating the heroes, the military victories, and the virtues of the young republic, and frequently all of these things at once.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- Credit Line
- Robert H. McCauley
- Physical Description
- monochrome, red (overall surface decoration color name)
- ceramic, earthenware, refined (overall material)
- transfer printed (overall production method/technique)
- Measurements
- overall: 6 13/16 in x 7 1/2 in x 5 9/16 in; 17.30375 cm x 19.05 cm x 14.12875 cm
- Object Name
- pitcher
