Some dated English drinking vessels with trailed-slip decoration, 1612-1752

Magazine Antiques, June, 1995 by Leslie Grigsby

By the mid-1600's, lead-glazed low-fired earthenware decorated with slip, a syrupy mixture of clay and water, was being produced in many parts of Great Britain. Craftsmen at first employed locally dug days and other raw materials, and later sometimes combined them with those brought in from other regions. Slip ornament differs depending on the date and region in which it was created. Most often in England, the decorative slip was trailed on - a technique that called for the liquefied clay to be poured or dripped through small spouts or tubes (often quills) inserted into a slip cup. The flow of the slip was controlled by either tilting the cup or by covering a hole. Linear designs in brown slip were sometimes elaborated with dots, or jewels, of cream-colored slip (see, for example, Pl. II). Sometimes stamps, patterned roulette wheels, or other tools were used to impress textured designs into the trailed decoration (see Pl. XVIII).(1)

Dated trailed-slip ware can be used not only as an aid in determining when the much greater number of surviving undated examples were made, but also to illustrate the use and re-use of slipware shapes and types of decoration over several decades. Drink containers with trailed slip include jugs, posset pots, and single- or multihandled cups, some of which hold several quarts. The latter could be shared among several revelers and were passed around tables amid toasts celebrating births, christenings, weddings, or other important occasions. Although the inscriptions on these prized pots often commemorate a specific event, they were undoubtedly used again at later festivities.

Among the earliest dated slip-trailed drinking vessels are beaker-shaped tygs, or multi-handled cups, made in and near Wrotham in Kent, England, about twenty-five miles southeast of London.(2) As early as 1829 Simeon Shaw described what was almost certainly a Wrotham tyg:

On Tuesday in Whitsun week, 1824, the late Mr. John Riley, accompanied the author to inspect a curious and beautiful specimen of Brown ware....The vessel is a QUART DRINK MUG, of cylindrical shape, rather widened but not flanged at the top, with a thin edge....This is by the four handles saperated into four compartments, and four persons might use it, yet each drink from his own place.

The four handles are double looped, and remarkably well stouked [stuck] on; the outer surface has a deep groove, in which is laid a misted band of the red and whitish clays, the bend of each has a button of whiter clay, & of this is also a hat shaped ornament on the top of each upper loop, near the brim; and under is a small hole for the rarefied air to escape, to prevent each being split while in the oven. Between the handles are ornaments, formed by either white clay slip, left to dry, and afterwards impressed with a carved stick, or tool; or else stuck on with a stick and trimmed to its present form. These are in embossed squares, G R above a dog, 1642 above a deer, M H above a rosette, and a well made fleur-de-lis over a seal of a face; and many drops of a white clay slip on the other parts.(3)

Typically made of clay ranging in color from red to dark brown, beaker-shaped Wrotham tygs generally have four double-looped handles (those with two or three double-looped handles exist but are less common).(4) The handles are often topped by small-waisted finials or by tubelike spouts that descend into the belly of the tyg (transforming it into a posset pot). The handles may be inlaid with straight strips of cream-colored day applied above or below ropes of twisted cream and brown clays (see Pls. VI-IX).

Among the most recognizable decoration on Wrotham tygs are applied pads of cream-colored clay (typically square, rectangular, round, oval, or irregular in shape) bearing relief motifs created with small intaglio molds. Varying greatly in elegance of design and used in seemingly unrelated combinations, these reliefs often depict flowers (especially rosettes, daisylike blossoms, and fleurs-de-lis), lions, angels, raspberrylike and other abstract designs, and occasionally armorial shields.(5)

The inscriptions on Wrotham tygs are limited primarily to dates and initials and may be in relief or slip trailed. Relief initials are thought to identify various potters (see Pls. I, VI-IX),(6) while slip initials may refer to the owners of the vessels. For example, the relief initials "GR" on the tyg dated 1648 in Plate IX and on a four-handled, beaker-shaped Wrotham puzzle jug dated 1659(7) are likely to refer to the potter George Richardson; the trailed initials on the puzzle jug ("RWS") are presumably those of the husband and wife for whom the piece was made. Interestingly, the puzzle jug also bears the unusual trailed inscription "WROTHAM," as does the globular tyg dated 1701 shown in Plate I and a similar example dated 1709 in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.(8)

Globular Wrotham tygs, with closely spaced pairs of loop handles, are known from as early as the mid-seventeenth century. Only a few examples survive bearing dates in the 1650's and 1660's,(9) but by the 1670's they had increased in popularity,(10) and eventually they replaced the beaker-shaped tygs.(11) After about 1700 the number decorated exclusively with slip trailing increased dramatically, although an example dated 1739, the latest known tyg of this shape, has both relief and trailed ornament.(12)