Harvest Jugs From 17th, 18th & 19th Century England to 19th Century America

Report 1 - Harvest Jugs

North Devonshire, England Harvest Jug

First Half of 19th Century

Photo Courtesy: Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York City

"A beautiful garden laid out and tenanted like the gardens of colonial days, and serene with the atmosphere of a worthy old age; a garden which had been tended for over a half century by a withered old man and his wife, whose golden wedding was spent in the house they they had built, and in the garden they had planted when they were bride and groom. His back was permanently  bowed with constant weeding and pruning and planting and hoeing, and his hands and face were brown as the soil he cultivated. The "hot-glowing" crimson peonies, seedlings which the wife had sown in her youth, had become great shrubs, fifteen or twenty feet in circumference. The flowering shrubs were trees...There were beautiful fairy groves of fox-gloves "gloriously freckled, purple, and white," and tall Canterbury bells...and Persian lilacs...At the lower end of the flower borders were rows of "honey-blob" gooseberries, and aged currant bushes, gray with years, overhung by a few patriarchal quince and crab-apple trees, with low spreading branches." (Home Life in Colonial Days, Alice Morse Earle - 1898)

Connecticut or Southeastern, Massachusetts Redware Milk Pan

Early to Mid 19th Century

It can be assumed, like the early American redware milk pan, the early foreign and domestic manufactured field jugs were primarily intended for use by workers in the nearby fields, but additionally, they may have served multiple unexpected needs around the early American household.

The husband and wife that Alice Morse Early wrote of in her book, "Home Life in Colonial Days," may have intermittently been using a harvest jug while tending to their perennial gardens. It may have served as a source of thirst for the couple and their flowers.

After reading through her description of flower gardens in early colonial America - my interpretation was the temperature appeared to be warm, but that was only how I read into it. It my have been a cool spring day. I personally envisioned the older couple working in an English style garden - the kind of garden that seems to never stop blooming. The sun may have been high and beating down on the elderly couple. It is quite possible, the husband and wife may have owned a harvest jug, but for the period it was most likely an English form. Harvest jugs are not believed to have been produced in early colonial America by domestic potters. Who knows what an early potter may have chose to create or copy on any given day? A few may have been produced and are now unfortunately lost in-time.

The couple's jug may have been purchased locally, fresh off a ship from England. Morse's story may have been told of a garden that was near a colonial seaport community like Charlestown, Massachusetts - and the harvest jug may have even been the product of a sixteenth or seventeenth-century North Devonshire, England potter.

North Devonshire, England Harvest Jug

Dated 1697

Photo Courtesy: The British Museum - London, England

According to The British Museum in London, "(English) Harvest jugs are so called because they are associated with the large jugs and pitchers used for carrying beer to the farm workers at harvest time. This example is made of lead-glazed earthenware with incised decoration of stylized floral motifs." (Home Life in Colonial Days, Alice Morse Earle - 1898)

North Devonshire, England Harvest Jug

Dated 1781

Photo Courtesy: Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York City

The Americanized form of the harvest jug manifested in the nineteenth-century. It was in this century when the form took on a life of its own in America. To my belief, alcohol has never been associated with the American style before, but if it were used at a dinner table - it may have been used for more than only water. The nineteenth-century form was produced up and down the east coast from possibly Maine all the way to Georgia, from Pennsylvania to Tennessee and throughout the Mid-Atlantic states.

Longtime Ohio dealer and collector, Sam Forsythe made-mention to me yesterday of a possible Maine produced harvest jug that sold at Northeast Auctions in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2008. Diana and Garrison Stradling (New York) purchased the jug. It has since appeared on the showroom floor at Antiques Week (January) in New York City.

Purportedly Maine-Made Harvest Jug (Possibly New York State, too)

19th Century - Circa 1840

Sold: $8,700 in 2007

Photo Courtesy: Northeast Auctions - Portsmouth, NH

I am not positive that the jug attributed to Maine by Northeast Auctions, is in-fact, a Maine product. Let's assume it is. The green jug I discovered recently was found in Maine. I feel there is a strong French influence, but I feel it is rather a Canadian or Maine product. I do not have any supportive proof other than where it was found - that being inside an early country Maine farmhouse. It had likely been sitting there for many years. The jug was sold still covered in dirt and complete with the remains of a mouse nest inside of it when I purchased it. The jug may have come from a basement, barn or exposed to the weather for years left alone outside. Regardless, the green jug has a story to tell and I would enjoy hearing it!

19th Century Redware Pitcher or Field Jug

Country of Origin: Presently Not Known 

Circa 1820-1860

As I mentioned above, the American harvest jug may have served an additional purpose around the household. Could the form have served a purpose in a more formal setting around the dinner table?

"Perhaps no greater difference exists between any mode of the olden times and that of to-day, than can be seen in the manner of serving the meals of the family...The very dining-table of the colonists was not like our present ones; it was a long and narrow board, sometimes but three feet wide, with no legs attached to it...The chargers, or large round platters (and plates) found on every dining-table, were of pewter...(The spoons, forks and knives of pewter or silver)...An English writer in 1579, spoke of the English custom of drinking from "pots of earth" of sundry colors and moulds, whereof many are garnished with silver, or least-wise with pewter."

At this same described colonial table may have sat a seventeenth or eighteenth-century North Devonshire harvest jug. The beer, wine, drink or water may have possibly been poured from it into the described "pots of earth." Who is to say that a hundred years later, an American version of the harvest or field jug did not sit at the Federal or Victorian period dinner table? It is very likely!

American Redware Field  or Harvest Jug - Mid-Atlantic Origin

Early 19th Century

Sold: $1,500 in 2007

Photo Courtesy: Skinner, Inc. - Boston, Ma

This idea makes you think of how each American redware and stoneware form was used. There were dozens of forms with variations in form that interpretations from potter to potter and region to region. I assume we have all taken a salad bowl or water pitcher (or similar form) and used it for a need that the object was not intended. Could this idea serve true for American field and harvest jugs?

If you look closely at the Americanized forms, no two are alike - and it stands true for both redware and stoneware products. It appears that each potter's interpretation was unique. The harvest jugs made in England, France, Italy, Egypt and other foreign nations seem to take a more uniform approach from the potters of specific regions within each country.

Carrying Handle and Interior Glaze

I am still searching for any additional information about the green redware jug I found a few days ago in coastal Maine. It seems to be a variation of two forms - a pitcher and a harvest jug. It's ovoid form and weight lead me to believe a maker outside of continental Europe is very-likely. The jug's provenance makes me question a Maine or more likely, a Canadian maker. Maine versus Canada - any thoughts? It appears to have a French influence, but it does not conform to what is expected of French potters. Any feedback is more than welcome.

(Pictures do this jug no due justice. It is a fascinating study when held in person. The appreciation can only be seen in person.)

Unglazed Base of Redware Jug

Much more to come...