509/2011

Collection

Ceramics

Brief description

Tin-glazed earthenware sugar pot and cover with polychrome painted decoration of stylised peonies and tulips with scrolling and wave-like borders, probably manufactured in Vauxhall, c.1715-20.

Object name

Sugar pot

Object number

509/2011

Production date

c.1715-20 (manufactured)

Period

Georgian (1714-1837)

Material

earthenware
tin glaze

Technique

glazed
painted
thrown

Physical description

Tin-glazed earthenware sugar pot and cover. The body of the pot is cylindrical with a foot-rim; painted in blue, red and green with a repeating band of alternating flower heads, stylised peonies and tulips, leafy sprigs and circles of small dots. There is a wave-like blue border at the foot and a blue scrolling border with red V shapes at the rim.
The disc-shaped cover has a low, hollow knop on a thick stem, and is painted with decoration to match that on the body of the pot, with three repeats of the flowers, a wavelike border painted around the foot of the knop and a border of three concentric rings painted in blue at the rim.

Dimensions

Height: 5.2cm
Diameter: 5.5cm
Diameter: 7.2cm
Diameter: 8cm
Height: 2cm

Website keywords

serving drink
tea, coffee and chocolate drinking

Label

Label text for the exhibition At Home with the World, Geffrye Museum (20 March 2012- 9 September 2012):
Sugar pot
Behind this eighteenth-century earthenware sugar pot is an appalling story of human suffering. Europeans’ newfound passion for bitter-tasting hot drinks (tea, coffee and chocolate) demanded sugar as a sweetener. The cost of satisfying this sweet tooth was borne by Africans shipped in inhuman conditions in their millions to the Caribbean, to labour on sugar plantations as an enslaved workforce.