Pitcher, "Apotheosis"
date: label: date made
content: 1800
notes: label: Description
content: The “Plan of the City of Washington” depicts the figures of Britannia and America examining the street plan of the District of Columbia. Britannia is shown pointing to the site of the Capitol building. The print is based on the street plan designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant and completed by Andrew Ellicott in 1792. Finally, under the spout is a transfer printed medallion with the words, “A MAN / without example / A PATRIOT / without reproach” drawn from Thomas Paine’s “An Eulogy on the Life of General George Washington.” This jug was part of the George Horace Lorimer Collection and was purchased by Robert H. McCauley from Parke Bernet Galleries in New York on March 31, 1944 for $75.00. Lorimer was an editor of The Saturday Evening Post from 1899 to 1936.
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, Liverpool
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Government, Politics, and Reform
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content: Domestic Furnishings
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content: McCauley Liverpool Pottery
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Robert H. McCauley
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.63.165
label: catalog number
content: 63.165
label: accession number
content: 248619
label: collector/donor number
content: 44-346
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pitcher
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, black (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, earthenware, refined (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: transfer printed (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/2 in x 8 1/2 in x 6 in; 24.13 cm x 21.59 cm x 15.24 cm