Yesterday presented a rare opportunity, where three circa 1700 carved brown stoneware mugs from Nottingham, England sold at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina; the objects sold as part of the John B. and Marie-Teresa Vander Sande Collection of Newbury, Massachusetts. This was also a type of production that was demonstrated by Massachusetts potter Mark Shapiro at the June 2024 ceramic conference at Historic Eastfield Village in New York, more commonly known as "Dish Camp."
Interestingly, the three mugs that sold happened to have represented a percentage of the small number of extant example known in the world today. The mugs sold individually for $8,500, $6,000 and $10,000, plus the buyer's premium.
According to information that accompanies a similar mug owned by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, "A trade card dating from around 1700 and advertising the wares of “James Morley at the pothouse in Nottingham” includes an illustration of “A carved jug”, which is the same shape as this mug and is decorated with comparable, although not identical, pierced and incised floral sprays. This form of mug does not appear to have been exclusive to Morley and it is thought that many English potters produced items of this kind. It is therefore impossible to securely attribute a "carved jug" of this kind. However, the chocolate brown colour of the slip-coating and oily sheen of the salt-glaze on this mug are considered typical of Morley’s products, suggesting a possible Nottingham origin. There is a mug in the Victoria & Albert Museum of a similar brown colour which is inscribed ‘nott 1703’, lending further weight to the possibility the mug was produced in Nottingham. The basic shape of this mug, with its bulbous body and thin neck, may have been inspired by contemporary silverware."
Furthermore, Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts also owns an example: "Potter James Morley of Nottingham is often credited as the maker of these double-walled, carved stoneware mugs with lustrous glazes. A circa 1700 proof of Morley’s trade card, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, depicts similarly carved wares, including a mug, a teapot, and a capuchine. Morley, however, did not invent this style of carved decoration; neither was he likely the first or only potter in England to employ the decoration. Authors commonly point to the carved decoration on early Chinese ceramics, such as linglong [devil’s work] ware, in addition to early German stonewares, as possible sources of inspiration for the carved decoration on English stonewares. At present, only one example of this carved brown salt-glazed stoneware has been located at an American archaeological site. Excavations at the Drummond Plantation site in James City County, Virginia yielded a fragment of a double-walled teacup with pierced decoration."
Note: Here is also a link to a related object owned by Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia: https://emuseum.history.org/objects/15163/carved-mug.
Circa 1700 Carved Brown Stoneware Mugs from Nottingham, England
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