Essay: Industrialization, Ornamentation, and Taste: Relief-Molded Jugs, 1830-1880

Ann Smart Martin

2018

“Art is invested with a sublime prerogative, when it can thus raise and elevate the common round of daily life” wrote the anonymous author of “The New Crockery Shop” in 1849. The tale’s narrator grandly continued “that in every cup, jug, dish, glass, basin, knife, fork, spoon, chair, table, clock, fender fabricated on principal, a power or germ may be set … {to} elevate the moral being of the population.”[1]

Today, the author of the above passage sounds both prescient (objects can prescribe human behavior) and old-fashioned (everyday things can promote morality). Thus, art was not only found in a museum or elite private home, but also in commodities that poured from new machines in new factories. Arts and industry in manufacturing consumer goods were thus inexorably intertwined. The burgeoning middle class had a vast array of choices to fill their homes. Critics disparaged the explosion of goods as bad design, whether overly ornamented or, replicating old design, or using inauthentic materials. They fretted that the burgeoning numbers of middle class consumers who were purchasing them were displaying bad taste. Britain, the greatest nation on earth, should do better to educate their citizens

This material culture analysis draws upon this larger debate of mid-nineteenth century Britain to examine stoneware jugs found on many household tables. Designed and ornamented with high relief molding, these jugs of multiple sizes were immensely popular in Britain from about 1830 to 1870. The vessels were the product of a near perfect alignment of materials, technologies and popular taste. Made for a market, their designs were praised and critiqued in significant Victorian publications such as the Journal of the Society of Arts (1852-1908) or the Art Journal (1839-1904, different names). At their best, these vessels, reached some of the pinnacles of decorative art. Studying the popular designs of these wares give insights into Victorian art and design, ornament drawn from popular culture (heroic myth, literature, history, and botanica), and improving technologies of molding.[2]

Ornamentation of utilitarian objects was part of a groundswell of discussion of mid Victorian-era manufacturing, design, and ornament. These debates emerged from several directions, but all could come together in an object like a lamp. The first is that objects of arts in the home of the laboring poor would help contain tensions flaring in the rising power of a factory culture. Manufacturing power was the new engine of the economy, but its uncontained blast might lead to dissatisfaction of class position. The second is to improve the taste of manufacturers and makers by an educational system that recognized design is important and must be taught. There was quite objective “good” design and “bad” design that brooked no dissent. Third, the consumer could best develop good taste by seeing and relating to the great art design of the ancients. Finally, the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century religiosity in which morality is linked to plain living must be modified. The middle class needed a way to accept a factory’s flood of consumer goods without challenging accepted codes of morality. By the second quarter of the nineteenth-century, the final link of the chain was forged when manufactured household goods themselves could be the progenitors of morality that could help raise the morals of a consumer.

USE

Ceramic jugs have held and dispensed liquids for thousands of years. Their essential form—a handle for hands to move the vessel from vertical toward horizontal, a spout to guide liquid, and often a bulbous shape that comfortably rests body or surface—was made in a wide variety of wares and sizes. This type of vessels had many uses and thus was made in multiple sizes and with varying decorations. During the nineteenth century in Britain, their materials ranged from inexpensive earthenware to luxury metals. Well-decorated and medium priced wares like relief-molded stoneware jugs fell in the middle price spectrum

What did the jugs contain? These vessels were used for serving, carrying, moving, and storing of liquids. Common nineteenth-century drinks included water, beer, cider, juice, milk, and a few specialized alcoholic libations. But particular evidence of the jug’s contents is thin. The smallest size was appropriate for table serving. Merchants sold some vessels as creamers or milk jugs.[3] Other smaller sizes had internal strainers to block particles in liquids from exiting the spout. These could be popular alcoholic mixtures like punches or toddies, or medicinal formulations like paps, or foods in a soft gruel for babies or invalids. One critic used the pattern of a jug to link to its use: a bulrush design was presumably used for “tee-totallers because of the watery character of its ornament” and a design displaying hops was “most appropriate for libations of Bass and Allsop’s pale ales.”[4]

The larger sizes had multiple more prosaic uses, from washing hands to carrying gallons. A principal utility was moving liquids from one place to another, whether within the household or to and from public places. In 1849, the Art Journal identified the manufacturers Ridgway & Abington as “famous for their manufacture of water and beer jugs.”[5] Carrying water was an obvious use, as close access to drinkable clean water–“desirable for the health and cleanliness” of the population– was variable. [6] One contemporary report estimated that a minimum of twelve gallons was needed for a “cleanly man of a fairly clean household.” A large ceramic bowl and pitcher was most likely used for personal hygiene; five gallons was needed just for a daily sponge bath. The rest of the water was needed for washing up, drinking, and cooking. The report’s authors estimated that poor households were estimated to use between five and 7 ½ gallons per person per day.[7] The vessels used may have been of differing materials but carrying liquids for family use was imperative.

Transporting beer from public house to home was a particular public use of these vessels. Many jugs had attached Britannia metal lids that could be raised or lowered promoting cleanliness and ease of carrying when full. Other specialized uses were noted in either the names of jugs or in documented orders for “beer jugs”[8] The minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select Committee appointed to inquire into Drunkenness in 1834 confirmed that beer was carried in “jugs, or pint or quart pots.”[9] Social reformers measured drinking decadence in its highest form as children transporting beer from public houses, or especially spirits from “gin shops.” Inexpensive prints depicted cheaply decorated establishments filled with dissolute adult customers drinking spirits while small children handled or drank from jugs.

Naturally, any such jugs had multiple uses and utilities.   Their decorative molding was just that– decorative—and the beauty of these jugs was to be admired. The residents of many Victorian homes displayed cherished ceramic items, whether fine vases or small figurines, on mantelpieces. A choice location over the fire enabled close study and the flickering flames brought out variation through shadowing and highlighting molding patterns.

A jug’s owner may also have displayed rather than used one of these vessels to insure against breakage. The more complex the molding in sculptural realism, the more likely that protruding noses on animals or outstretched hands of celebrants would be shattered. One critic suggested that the most extraordinary heavily-molded, graceful patterns were not for daily use but seemed “intended for use in the drawing-room.”[10]. (See Foxes and Hounds and Medieval Revelry)

Technologies:

By the 1840s, relief-molded jugs were highly successful and fashionable products. Made of a thin highly vitrified stoneware with molding covering whole bodies, including handles and spouts, their success was based on the steady innovations of eighteenth-century Staffordshire potters to make dependable long-lasting molds and to improve body, color and glazing.

Potters perfected the fine easily-molded stoneware material two decades before the perfection of these widely popular jugs. Deep molding of vessels created problems with glazing, a process used to keep surfaces clean and to seal porous materials. Traditionally workers had dipped a vessel in a lead glaze. Another technique was to fire stoneware clay vessels at an extremely high temperature and throw in salt that fused to create a glassy coating. Both of these methods unfortunately produced thick surface layers that made seeing fine lines of detail difficult.

As early as 1780, innovations in firing and changing methods of glazing helped solve this problem. At a certain temperature in the firing, a mix of materials (including lead and salt) was placed within the closed containers (saggars) where vessels were stacked during firing. The resulting fusion with ceramic surfaces “smeared” the jugs with thin glaze that helped seal the ceramic without becoming so heavy that detail was obscured. This was accomplished at lower heats and hence reduced costs of production. This method of producing sheen was improved and widely adopted by the 1830s on relief-molded jugs.[11]

Potters’ efforts to produce and control uniform color bodies and surfaces on ceramic wares proved difficult. Coarse stone wares were often a variegated brown in color, such color effects made by iron in the clay being brought to the surfaces by the high heat of salt-glazing. Writing in 1860 in his paper, “On Stoneware” published in the Journal of the Society of Arts, Edwin Goodard reported that “the more fastidious taste or recent years” meant that variegated brown colors were no longer acceptable.[12]

Part of the popularity of these jugs was no doubt due to their uniform surface colors. Drawing upon Josiah Wedgwood’s breakthrough body coloring from the century before, factory workers stained or painted these jugs to form an even color background. Commonly produced colors changed over the long popularity of these vessels. Potters used blue, pale green, olive green, tan, and later lavender and brown colors before returning to more uniform plain white wares at mid-century. Pottery workers (usually women) highlighted particular details by over-painting or added gilding (See Distin Family: The Saxon Horn Performers).

Finally, it was the sheer complexity and variety of overall molded shape and ornament that popularized these vessels over other contemporary wares. The technique of ceramic molding itself was not new. Miriam Goodby points to successful modelling of ceramic bodies by the Elers brother in Staffordshire early in the eighteenth century to copy Yixing wares from
China. After the formulation of plaster of Paris in 1745, complex molded vessels became much easier to make and use. Manufacturers were keen to use molds to fashion ceramic vessels. The practice made ceramic production faster and reduced the need for extra creative skill in the factory. The artistry and design of these vessels lay in the making of the original mold, and good designers were necessary to craft the three-dimensional model and resulting master molds from which vessels could be formed. Potters quickly took advantage of making sprigs (small molded decorated elements) or overall body molding. Flat and hollow wares in two-part molds in the middle of the eighteenth-century molds when fine white stoneware was pressed as a clay slab into a mold or poured as liquid clay(slip) into a hollow pattern.[13] The more complicated the vessel, the greater the number of molds a potter needed (See video on making molds).

But these variations and technologies would not completely converge until improved machine production could implement all in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.   Goodard listed the greater the number of molds a potter needed a number of important improvements in the quarter century before his writing; including mechanical improvements to turning the potters’ wheel which enabled workmen to make more articles at a cheaper price, the use of molds which allowed the production of bottles to be more perfectly made to measure compared turning them on the wheel; and the use of a turning lathe, which treated stiff clay like soft wood. Using the lathe produced sharp outlines and “running ornaments that could be thrown up with clearness and precision.”[14]

In all, the innovations that led to the successful production of these jugs had been ongoing for more than a century. Small improvements and modernizations, new machines, talented artist-artisans, and less hand production, all converged in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Finally, despite the vessels’ improvements, there is no escaping the sobering reality that workers in the potteries suffered horrific conditions often leading to early death. Children were employed in mines and manufactories throughout Britain and Parliament asked for a number of investigations in 1840. The report “Employment of Children and Young Persons in the District of the North Staffordshire Potteries and on the Actual State, Conditions and Treatment of Such Children and Young Persons” demonstrated that children were at work in the potteries usually by the age of 8, performing less skilled but onerous tasks for seventy-two hours a week. [15]

Potbanks and Factories

We know a great deal about the companies that made molded jugs. First, unlike many other less expensive or more common ceramics, potters often marked these jugs with their firm’s name. This practice marked the vessel as a claim of superior quality, beauty and artistic ownership. The Copyright Design Acts of 1842 meant that an original design could be patented with that information included on a coded stamp on the vessel’s base. Patents were originally for only twelve years and copies were common. But this procedure allows a basic framework of designs that their makers deemed important and considered most likely to be profitable. So too competition was high among the major manufacturers or important heritage ceramic firms and the smaller firms who often tried to cut cost. Finally, these ceramics were part of a large Victorian conversation about design qualities and jugs from specific companies were discussed in leading arts journals of the day. Nonetheless, the number of extant jugs containing no marks, including those from the great firm Herbert Minton, leaves much room for speculation

Richard Henrywood identified several dozen firms that made molded jugs and he particularly highlights seven that were design leaders or large producers. Based on known marked pots, Kathy Hughes names more than fifty firms. Some were different businesses grouped around the same potter, as firms changed because of death or economic loss. Some were families with long ties to the potteries’ famous names like William Copeland whose family partnered with Jonas Spode.

This exhibition included jugs from sixteen known firms, six of which Henrywood deemed especially significant in terms of design, production and output. These included Herbert Minton and Company (usually known just as Minton), William Ridgway, Charles Meigh, Jonas Copeland, and Samuel Alcock. While not an original goal, the jugs chosen for this exhibition mirrored the date range of the jugs themselves. A few very early and important vessels were produced in the 1830s. A huge peak in quantity occurred in the 1840s, along with a slow decline in each decade until 1880.

Taste and Morality

Can an everyday household object be moral? Today we might imagine several possibilities: perhaps if it is too expensive (silver or porcelain), of a material associated today with offensive labor practices (“sweatshop” labor), material extraction (“diamond”) or lack of sustainability (toxic metals) practices. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a large part of public and academic debate swirled around the problem of the new factories, their products, and their workers. Social divisions seemed to grate as class hierarchy seemed troubled and uneasy.

But can an object be immoral if it is in poor taste? Victorian social critics thought so. William Morris, one of the most significant innovators in design at the height of the Victorian period, dryly observed that “industrial ceramics” across Europe were a “most woeful set of works of art with Staffordshire “making the stupidest.”[16] Designs deemed to be in good taste published in the Journal of Arts and Design and Journal of the Society of Arts were heralded as proof that Britain’s superior manufacturing and design teaching allowed art to be so successfully applied to everyday household wares.(Appendix k: Jennifer)

The molded jugs in this exhibition give ample room for discussion of taste, both for us and for contemporaries.   For many modern Americans they may appear overwrought and fussy. Ceramic scholar Griselda Lewis writes that the design of these jugs shows “all the vulgarity and verve and gusto of the nineteenth century.”[17] One of the key elements of good design was that an object should be of material and design that is appropriate, i.e. natural rather than false. New technological advances meant that a precious surface could be replicated in a much cheaper way, like plating an object with a thin layer of silver rather than creating an entire object of silver. The ability to stamp metal surfaces meant that many kinds of particular decorative details could be employed.   But critics fumed: just because you can ornament it, doesn’t mean that you should (See Alhambra).

These notions of taste show Victorian consumers mediating between old ideas of the sins of excess and the piety of forbearance of plainness. If good taste could be morally uplifting, argues Deborah Cohen, household goods, when placed in the correct household setting, could be purchased with gusto.[18] As the author in Eliza Cook’s Journal urged, a “germ” might be planted.

Taste was, nonetheless, hardly absolute, but varied by class. One mid-century critic used food metaphors for his complaint. He wished the lower class would choose fine neoclassically styled Wedgwood for its discriminating taste would serve as “caviar for the masses.” He similarly distained contemporary molded wares, in this case Parian, a kind of faux marble, molded statuettes were “little sugar men” for the middling class.[19]

Crystal Palace

The swelling of national interest in the “artful and useful” led to regional design schools and ultimately to one of the greatest public events of the nineteenth century. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations held in the summer and fall of 1851 was the first gathering of international products meant to display well-designed products of industry. Proposed by a leading design scholar and supported by Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, this prodigious gathering of goods was housed in a building dubbed the Crystal Palace because of its stunning large glass building (a design marvel in itself). Six million visitors saw the offerings from twenty-five nations to demonstrate inventiveness and quality of production. A towering multi-tiered relief-molded jug made in both plain white stoneware and with multi-colored painting honored the participating nations. It was displayed at the Paris Exhibition in 1855 (See Jug of All Nations}.

Such exhibitions were later held throughout Europe and America. They taught, passing on knowledge to their visitors that would provide moral uplift. Seeing such fine design would promote better craftsmanship. Finally, the actual act of visitation was a form of leisure that differed from “debasing sports” and the horrid time spent in drunkenness at “tavern and gin-shop.” [20]

Speaking through Clay

Finally, and most importantly, the success of these vessels was based on the connection of consumer scenes that these jugs could display. Popularity of molded ornament drawn from popular culture (heroic myth, literature, history, and botanica) demonstrate a finely tuned dance of market and consumer.

Mythology

The art and design of the ancient world was an extremely popular source for jug ornamentation. “The Portland vase,” averred Goddard in 1860 is “the patrician progenitor of the present pitcher”[21] Potters could hence draw upon a heritage pottery innovation from a century before as a model idea of taste for new jug design (See Portland Vase). Making that connection of taste from ancient to Victorian times was a major thread that continued to run through Victorian culture, particularly in the ideal of Grecian statuary as the essence of beauty. The Crystal Palace exhibition made that goal even more explicit in the Greek rooms filled with statuary. [22]

Knowledge of Greek mythology brought such scenes to life. One of the earliest examples appearing on these jugs is Pan made by William Ridgway and Company with Bacchus gracing two sides and the figure of Pan (with his flute) making up the handle. “Silenus” (Minton, c.1831 and later others) is a thoroughly dimensional swirl of muscular bodies, named for Silenus the god of wine-making and teacher of Bacchus (See Silenus Jug). Hence, potters used symbolism and storytelling of mythology to animate jugs. Other uses of classical elements included more generic putti (See Putti Jug). In all these elements, consumers could demonstrate an aura of taste and knowledge.

Literary

The extraordinary talent of manufacturers to make detailed molds enabled the depiction of particular scenes telling well-known stories. These included characters from Shakespeare and the Bible, but most common were stories of popular culture.

Crossing over with the popularity of drinking scenes on these jugs was the tale of Tam O’Shanter. Written by Robert Burns (1759-1796), many literary scholars consider it to be one of the greatest narrative poems in the Scottish language. Burns published it more than a half-century before the popularity of its depiction on relief-molded jugs, and the poem itself was a nostalgic look backward at beliefs in witchcraft in previous generations (See Robert Burns jug).

The narrative describes a country man at the local tavern. He drank too often and too much and had earned his wife’s disapproval. After one long night of inebriation, he begins riding home on his horse, only to see a scene of loud witch debauchery. Drawn too close by his curiosity, the witches glimpse him and take chase. He furiously rides home, evading their capture by crossing a river. His horse was not so lucky as the witches grabbed off his tail. The jugs depict these two critical scenes as the consequence of drunkenness and absence from the domestic hearth. They were made by multiple potteries in multiple sizes and colors. A comparable story of intemperate drinking was “Wee Willy” (See Tam O'Shanter jugs and  Wee Willy jug).

Following the growing anti-slavery and abolition feelings in mid-nineteenth-century Britain and America, designers turned to the best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life Among the Lowly. Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in America in March 1852 and in London a few months later, it was a smash hit. It was reputed that more than 1.5 million inexpensive copies of the book—some pirated–were sold in Britain in the year after American publication.[23]

The printed plates from the novel were ripe for copying in a jug form. One side of the vessel depicted the scene of a slave auction, and the other detailed little Eva’s flight across the frozen Ohio River to freedom. A caricature of a Negroid head was molded on the jug’s handle.

Stowe embarked on a long speaking tour in Britain in 1853 to address the passionate legion of anti-slavery advocates. The “Slavery” jug was designed and sold only a year later. In producing the design, manufacturers assumed the subject and scenes would attract a large market of consumers with a strong passion for abolition, as well as those moved by Stowe’s novel. Designing molded jugs that directly referenced such political issues was rare, but many decorative arts in the home reflected social causes (See Slavery jug).

The Bible

Perhaps because of the ignoble use of these jugs in everyday household activities and drinking of alcohol, sacred scenes were uncommon. Biblical verses were often read, told to others, and depicted on objects. In Samuel and Eli, the young boy proclaims to Eli his vision of the Lord. The imagery on the jug reminds the user of salvation through faith – an important prospect in Christianity. It was based on an 1826 print of an earlier painting by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) (See Samuel and Eli jug).

Nonetheless the presence of jugs with scenes of lesser known Biblical characters demonstrates a common a penchant for religious piety and indicates that the stories and their morals were known. Manufacturers often used scenes of everyday men and women found in the Bible that metaphorically resonate in contemporary Victorian piety. Women from the Old Testament were especially important as they connected with Victorian women’s traditional roles. One relief molded jug, for example, depicts Naomi, an older woman whose husband and sons died, but was aided by her daughter-in-law Ruth. Another depicts the young Rebeka carrying a water jug to the well where she demonstrates her kindness by sharing water and thus gains an auspicious marriage. The connection of Biblical water jugs and Victorian ones was clear.

Drunkenness:

If there was doubt of either the British love for beer or the use of the jugs in carrying libations, the prevalence of designs including drinking scenes is additional proof. There is a double play of what is depicted and of what these jugs may have been used for, i.e. sharing and drinking alcohol.

The designs fell into several categories. First, the prevalence of mythological figures whose fates were tied to their status as bon vivants or to downfallen gods.   Pan and Bacchus were prevalent and their metaphorical reminders of excess and ruin fit a Victorian public morality. Second, popular stories like Tam O’Shanter or Wee Willie were popular shared tales of men drinking to excess that provided a successful foil to accepted social mores, often found in the role of disapproving wives. These figures were not contemporary Victorian ruffians; artists depicted them in established tropes like poor country drunks or rural public officials from a century before. These were men in the public house with mugs in hands, whether singing, telling yarns or playing games. They were themselves jokes. Third, the number of scenes that included hops, vines, or grapes told of a plentiful harvest but remained popular signifiers of beer, wine, and spirits.

Nature and naturalism:

By far the most common decorative motifs were drawn from nature. This wish for natural settings was part of the impetus of naturalism, so abundant in late nineteenth-century arts and design. As the British population urbanized and factories sullied what seemed to be undefiled nature, the longing for outdoors charm intensified. (Appendix, Kendra Greendeer).

The success of molding flowers and foliage were evaluated in three pottery jugs in The Journal of Design and Manufacture in 1849. The author commended them for their natural foliage, which in itself was better than “the art of past times.” But he cautioned that ornament in its highest form was not merely the replication of nature, but the creation of something new that captured the “spirit” of nature. The jug form and ornament must be a graceful combination, and the author pointed to the success of T.and J. Mayer’s jug “Convulvus” as an early patented design.[24] In only two years it would be an award winner depicted in the Art Journal Catalog of the Great Exhibition (See Convulvus jug).

The earliest depictions of nature demonstrated how a skillful modeler could capture nature with running patterns of leaves and vines. Later designs were more schematic, perhaps showing particular flowers. For one, lilies-of-the-valley (Copeland and other factories) were a beautiful form on the swelling bodies of jugs, large and small. It was the greatness of Britain that labor-saving machines could so deftly bring good design and social improvement (See Lilly of the Valley jug).

Modernism:

Ultimately the popularity of Victorian surface ornament began the slow march to modernism, as visual simplicity gained the aesthetic and moral summit. The Arts and Crafts movement decried the loss of the value of craft and promoted the look of natural materials and detailed signatures of the hand of the artisan. Still later—a half-century after the heyday of ebullient molding on jugs–the discussion of appropriate ornament was over. No ornamentation was the goal. Just as Victorians equated good taste and great design knowledge as a distillation of morality, popular taste would be inverted.  Architectural critic Alfred Loos, for one, equated ornament with cultural decline. In his 1908 essay “Ornament and Crime”, Loos proposed that “the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects.” He thus heralded the greatness of his age that had “outgrown ornament” and championed how “we have fought our way through to freedom from ornament.”[25]

Conclusion

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Staffordshire potteries had become global leaders in providing fine table wares and handsome everyday vessels. Scholars remain puzzled, but these jugs may not have reached as broad an international audience as other table wares, many easier to pack and ship, and many blazoned with their own printed story. Only a limited number have been found archaeologically in the United States. Some attribute the competition to fledgling American factories, such as Rockingham Pottery where British potters themselves had re-located and produced their own relief-molded jugs. Whatever the case, these vessels are filled with art, technology and culture, and each can tell a story.

Relief-molded jugs could be simple with limited three-dimensional form or glorious in deep sculptured lines, but what’s in a jug?