Object Type
This beer mug or jug was closely copied from contemporary German stoneware drinking vessels.

Trading
In the late 16th-century Britain was reliant on Dutch shippers for all its supplies of German stoneware beer mugs and bottles. Besides handling these vital imports, the Dutch also exported their own decorated slipwares (wares of coarse red clay decorated with a white liquid clay known as slip) and tin-glazed earthenwares, providing Britain with the fine tablewares it was not then possible to make locally. In particular, Dutch tin-glazed tiles and drug jars were in constant demand, to the extent that these were the main products of the potters Jasper Andries and Jacob Jansen, who settled in Norwich from the Low Countries in 1567. But there was also a ready market for exotic pottery drinking vessels which could be mounted in silver or silver-gilt, for example mugs from Iznik in Turkey and maiolica (painted tin-glazed earthenware) from North Italy. In terms of exotic style, however, these luxury goods were overshadowed by the fragile and expensive coloured glass imported from Venice.

Collectors & Owners
This jug belongs to a class of pottery once thought to be English. They were known to collectors as 'Malling' jugs, because the first example was found at West Malling church in Kent, where it had served as an altar flagon. Similar instances of export wares wrongly thought to be made in England are not hard to find. In the 19th century the 'Newcastle' glass decanters were imported from Denmark. It is now known from excavations that these 'Malling' jugs were made in the Low Countries.