As I told you in Wednesday's blog entry, I purchased, last Sunday part of a very large collection of pewter. The above items are two of the pieces I purchased.
They are this weeks MYSTERY ITEMS.
The one on the left (in some ways a very rare item indeed to have survived) is just under four and a half inches high and just under six inches across the upper rim/ brim. The one on the right is probably too easy to guess. It is just under six and a half inches high (to the top of the rather unusual barrel shaped knop. They are both (as stated) of pewter, and both English. Their purpose and date please ? As a clue the one on the left is probably slightly the earlier of the two, but they are of much the same period. Good guessing.
9 comments:
First!
I think the one on the right is a tobacco jar - quite early, poss late 17c.
Well done Rog. You are quite right. I is a tobacco jar.
Sorry. IT is a tobacco jar. I isn't.
I agree Rog, but I would guess a little later, say 1710-1730. More usually seen with an acorn finial.
The footed bowl is a little more difficult to specify, but possibly a barbers suds-bowl or an apothecary's mortar, although I suppose pewter to be a little on the soft side for such heavy work.
Might the bowl be a cook's salt cellar of the early Eighteenth century?
I knew the right one was a tobacco jar, but I'll go later than Mr Rog, how about 1776?
Not sure about the item on the left. It looks like a mortar ?Made around 1748?
Is the other item a spitoon then?
The item on the right, which Rog spotted immediately as being a tobacco jar, is, of course, just that, a tobacco jar. Nea (as is becoming usual) got the nearest to the date of it, which I would think, is about 1790 (certainly within ten or so either way- and that of course puts it just nicely within Nea's dating).
Maggie got nearest to the item on the left's purpose, by guessing it to be a spitoon (although I prefer the term 'cuspidor' Mag)- it isn't, but may well have been used as such. It is, in fact a CHILD size (which is where the rarity comes in) liner for a commode chair. In other words - a child's potty. This one, too, dates from the late 18th century - say 1770- 1790.
There was a very famous Italian, Renaissance painter, who possibly got his name from painting the early pottery versions of this item. He was, of course, Pottichelli............ Oh all right - I'll stop now ..... slinks off, sniggering quietly.
Sorry - misspelt that bad pun - should have been Potticelli - referring, of course to Sandro Botticelli, 1445 to 1510.
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