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DELFTWARE Beverage Wares 
Puzzle jugs 
D298. PUZZLE JUG 
Southwark, London 
c. 1644 
H.: 6" (15.2 cm); 
Diam. (body): 4 1/8" (10.4 cm); 
Diam. (with handle): 5" (12.7 cm) 
BODY CLAY: Medium-grained reddish 
buff. 
TIN GLAZE: Creamy white. Overall, 
excluding virtually all of bottom. 
SHAPE: Thrown. Hollow handle of 
circular to oval section with small hole 
under upper end. Slightly concave 
bottom. 
DECORATION: Painted. Four nearly 
circular panels with repeated geometric 
MD 
ruzzle jugs, popular for use in some drinking games, were produced in virtu-
ally all English ceramic types from medieval times on (for slipware examples,
see nos. S47, S75, S89-$91). Two 1644 dated delftware bottles are very similar
to 
the rare example shown here in their neck and handle ornament and horizontal-
line borders. One of the bottles has identically patterned panels; on the
other, 
somewhat different scrollwork forms a wide band.' (In 1644 factories active
in 
Southwark included Montague Close, Pickleherring, and Rotherhithe.) The 
panel motifs on this puzzle jug derive from ornament on Chinese porcelain
and 
have parallels on Italian and Dutch tin-glazed earthenware.' Another puzzle
jug, 
identical to the example shown here in shape and in neck and handle ornament,
has "bird-on-rock" motifs (see nos. D218, D219) on the body."
Dates on English 
delftware with such motifs range from the 1620s to the early 1650s, and 
fragments decorated in this way have been excavated in Southwark. 
and foliate pattern. Borders on body 
composed of horizontal lines, those on 
neck with superimposed vertical 
straight and wavy lines. Handle and rim 
bear irregular banding. 
Published: Home, Collection, pt. 17 no. 484. 
1. See Crossley, Puzzle jugs, for circulatory 
systems. 
2. lipski and Archer, Dated Delitware, 
nos. 1284 1285. 
3. For related motifs on an early 17th- 
century Dutch dish, see Scholten, van 
Drecht, no. 42. 
4. Pountney, Bristol, pl. 9, and Rackham, 
Glaisher, vol. 1, no. 1297. 
Actual size 
to, 0