This grey salt-glazed stoneware jug known as a Schnabelkanne or Tuellenkanne (spouted jug) is painted with cobalt-blue. It has applied relief-moulded decoration and is also ornamented with impressed motifs reminiscent of those on tooled leather bookbindings. The spout-bridge linking the long curved spout to the neck of the jug is moulded with the date '1591' and the initials 'I E'. The initials are those of the accomplished potter Jan Emens Mennicken (1540-93) who took his moulds with him when he migrated from his former workshop at Raeren to the Westerwald region east of the Rhine. His workshop continued to use moulds with his initials for many years after his death. The Westerwald region was rich in sources of fine pottery-making clay ideally suited to fine stonewares which were widely traded.
The jug has an embossed and engraved hinged silver lid, and the spout has a hinged silver spout-cover. Such richly-ornamented vessels were used to contain wine on middle-class dining tables. The main lid could be flicked back to receive wine decanted from a plainer vessel and the spout lid protected the wine until it was needed. Such jugs were used in conjunction with green forest-glass Berkemeyer glasses or fine Venetian style cristallo glasses.
The jug was formerly in the Weckherlin Collection, objects from which formed the core of the South Kensington (now V&A) Museum's German stoneware collection on their acquisition in 1868.