Pitcher, "America Lamenting the Death of Her Favourite Son"
notes: label: Description
content: The central image on this small creamware pitcher is titled “America Lamenting the Death of Her Favorite son” and features a female figure in native headdress and bare breasts weeping next to a profile portrait of Washington. Above the print is an eagle bowing its head. A secondary print, the Great Seal of the United States, decorates the reverse of the jug. The portrait of Washington on this jug is based on an engraving by Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint Memin around 1800. George Washington is the most common figure depicted on English creamware pitchers of this period. His death in 1799 led to an outpouring of commemorative products celebrating his life and mourning his death. Robert H. McCauley purchased this jug from Ginsberg and Levy of New York, NY on January 26, 1940 for $27.50.
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.63.111
label: catalog number
content: 63.111
label: accession number
content: 252565
label: collector/donor number
content: 379
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: 5 3/4 in x 6 1/8 in x 4 in; 14.605 cm x 15.5575 cm x 10.16 cm