Pitcher, "Peace, Commerce, and Friendship"
notes: label: Description
content: This pitcher was likely produced by Francis Morris of Shelton, Staffordshire County, England. The first image depicts a woman and child in a row boat bidding farewell to a sailor who has just set sail. Below the images is the verse “her less’ning boat unwilling rows to land / Adieu she cry’d and wav’d her lilly hand.” Under the spout is a print of the Great Seal of the United States with the most famous line of Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address (1801) below it: “Peace, Commerce, and honest Friendship with all Nations. Entangling Alliances with none- JEFFERSON / Anno Domini 1804.” On the reverse of the pitcher is a stock print of an American sailing ship. Finally, below the handle is a small print of three sailors talking, perhaps about recruitment. The edges of the pitcher are hand decorated with dark red ink. Maritime designs are especially common on English-made transfer printed creamware meant for the American market. Stock prints of ships, like the one on this example, were repeatedly used by English ceramics printers.
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: Military
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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.63.105
label: catalog number
content: 63.105
label: accession number
content: 252565
label: collector/donor number
content: 363
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pitcher
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (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: 11 in x 10 3/4 in x 7 in; 27.94 cm x 27.305 cm x 17.78 cm