Page 464

 
DELFTWARE Apothecary and 
              [Hygiene-Related Wares 
Barber Basins and a Chamber Pot 
D415. CHAMBER POT 
London or Bristol 
1710-1725 
H.: 3 3/8" (8.6 cm); 
W. (body): 4 1/4" (10.8 cm); 
L. (with handle): 5 5/8" (14.3 cm) 
BODY CLAY: Medium-grained buff. 
TIN GLAZE: Pale bluish white. Overall, 
excluding bottom of footrim. 
SHAPE: Thrown, with upper portion 
then pushed to oval shape. Pulled, nearly 
flat strap handle with curled lower 
terminal. 
DECORATION: Painted. Mounds with 
Chinese flowers and leaves and insects. 
Borders composed of horizontal lines 
and meander. Rim bears clusters of four 
oval dots on top and solid-line edge. 
Handle bears sets of horizontal slashes 
alternating with dash-filled oval or 
Chinese leaf motifs. 
Actual size 
1. Britton, Pickleherring, pp. 67-79. 
2. Britton, Inventories, p. 64; Austin, )elft, 
p. 16. 
3. Museum of 1ondon, Southwark and 
lambeth, pp. 309 310, fig. 1:31, no. 1265 
(Pickleherring/Mark Brown's Wharf site); 
Austin, Delft, p. 290, no. 725 (decorated 
and white examples excavated at 
Williamsburg, Virginia); Noel Hume, 
London and Virginia, p. 102, fig. XVII1; 
Thompson, Grew, and Schofield, Aldgate 
Excavations, p. 53, fig. 24, no. 95 (Aldgate 
[consumer sitel). For chamber pots exca- 
vated in Warwickshire, see Gooder, 
Temple Balsall, pp. 164 165, figs, 7 8, 
nos. 40-44, 48 52. 
4. Sotheby's (NY), October 20, 1993, lot 45; 
Britton, London, no. 45 (perhaps excavat- 
ed). See also Crellin, Wellcorne, pp. 248, 
250-251, nos. 421-422 Iwhite and blue- 
painted examples). For a North Devon 
sgraffito slipware chamber pot inscribed 
"W1 lWRl 16[?l" and excavated at the 
May-Hartwell site at Jamestown Island, 
Virginia, see Grigsby, Slipware, p. 30, 
no. 29. 
he 1699 inventory of the Pickleherring factory (Southwark) lists, in addition
to "stool panns," "chair panns," and "Childrens
Chair panns," 8,675 "Chamber 
potts" (including chamber pot slugs) variously in "White and Painted
Perfect 
Ware," "Ware Given White," "Biskett Ware," and "Clay
Ware,"' The 1726/7 inven- 
tory of the Gravel lane factory, also in Southwark, records "In the
Lower 
Ware-House ... best ware ... 222 dozen of second Ware viz small patty, spitting
Pots, best Chamber and second Chamber Pots &c some faulty," and
an entry for 
"1 doz Chamberpots" appears in a 1757 shipping list for goods shipped
to Mary- 
land from the Delftfield Pottery, near Glasgow.' Delftware chamber pots have
been excavated at Pickleherring and at other London and colonial sites.,
   The unusually small Longridge chamber pot is circular in section near
the 
base, but, perhaps because of accidental handling before it dried, the upper
por- 
tion is distorted to an oval. A very similar pot is painted in blue and white
with 
the same flowers, insects, and meander below a similarly dotted rim, and
an 
undecorated example is similar in body and handle shape., 
464 The Longridge Collection 
I 
I