Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 145

Cover

ca. 1810 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The custom of making frozen cream desserts spread from Italy to France, and then to Britain, during the second half of the 17th century. Ice was obtained locally, or imported from the Baltic countries, and stored in deep brick-lined ice houses. By the mid-18th century, ice cream was a major part of the dessert, and the ice pail used to serve it was often the largest and most imposing single item in the dessert service. Ice pails were usually made in three parts: the pail itself, which was packed with ice; a liner (missing from this example), which contained the ice cream or other frozen foodstuffs; and the cover, which would be filled with ice and perhaps topped with fruit.

This ice pail and cover is a striking example of early 19th-century naturalism. Unlike many other production lines of the Davenport works, this distinctive type of modelling was particular to the factory. Davenport was one of the big four English ceramic firms during the early-mid 19th century, alongside Minton, Spode and Wedgwood, and was generally at the cutting edge of design, but not always innovative in terms of materials and techniques. However, the firm left no archive, and in part because it did not pioneer a new ceramic material with which the factory’s name became synonymous (as with Wedgwood with Jasper and Minton with Majolica), and because it left no archive, its importance was largely forgotten until the 1970s.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Ice Pail
  • Cover
Materials and techniques
Pearlware, with moulded decoration, painted in enamels
Brief description
Ice pail and cover, pearlware painted in enamels, Davenport's factory, Longport, ca. 1810
Physical description
Cylindrical pail, the body moulded with oak branches with acorns and leaves, the handles naturalistically modelled as twigs, all moulded parts enhanced by painting in enamels (in shades of green and brown); the exterior of the cover is moulded with a matching band of oak leaves and has interwined twig handles rising from the central recess; the rims of both parts are picked out in brown and the mouldings at the foot and at the base of the cover are ringed in brown. The liner is missing.
Dimensions
  • Maximum (without liner) height: 25.2cm
  • Width: 26.2cm
  • Maximum diameter: 21.0cm
Marks and inscriptions
The pail is impressed with the factory mark of 'Davenport' above an anchor
Credit line
Given by the American Friends of the V&A Museum through the generosity of Judy Novak
Object history
Bought from the collection of Joyce Mountain, Bonhams, London, 21/09/2005
Subjects depicted
Summary
The custom of making frozen cream desserts spread from Italy to France, and then to Britain, during the second half of the 17th century. Ice was obtained locally, or imported from the Baltic countries, and stored in deep brick-lined ice houses. By the mid-18th century, ice cream was a major part of the dessert, and the ice pail used to serve it was often the largest and most imposing single item in the dessert service. Ice pails were usually made in three parts: the pail itself, which was packed with ice; a liner (missing from this example), which contained the ice cream or other frozen foodstuffs; and the cover, which would be filled with ice and perhaps topped with fruit.

This ice pail and cover is a striking example of early 19th-century naturalism. Unlike many other production lines of the Davenport works, this distinctive type of modelling was particular to the factory. Davenport was one of the big four English ceramic firms during the early-mid 19th century, alongside Minton, Spode and Wedgwood, and was generally at the cutting edge of design, but not always innovative in terms of materials and techniques. However, the firm left no archive, and in part because it did not pioneer a new ceramic material with which the factory’s name became synonymous (as with Wedgwood with Jasper and Minton with Majolica), and because it left no archive, its importance was largely forgotten until the 1970s.
Collection
Accession number
C.64:1, 2-2005

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Record createdJanuary 3, 2006
Record URL
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