Mainly unglazed stoneware funnel-necked drinking-jug, with small ring handle and frilled slightly raised foot. The pale grey stoneware is partly-coated with a light, patchy naturally orange coloured ash glaze. Germany: Siegburg, about 1500.

Mainly unglazed stoneware drinking-jug with funnel-neck flaring out to a wider mouth, small ring handle and frilled slightly raised foot. The stoneware is a pale grey and horizontal banding is visible showing clearly that the jug was wheel-thrown. Parts of the jug are coated with a light, patchy naturally orange coloured ash glaze formed from the potash from the kiln fuel.

Transferred from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street

This jug was made in Siegburg, an abbey town on the River Sieg about 12km. east of Bonn where the river joins the Rhine. It was one of many objects transferred to the South Kensington Museum on the closure of the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, but its earlier history is not recorded.

Historical significance: Pottery was made in Siegburg from at least 1150, with exports including stoneware from the mid-13th century and a potters' guild from about 1400. Most of the workshops were just outside the town walls. It is not known which workshop produced this particular jug. Except for the 1580s when wars caused some potters to move away, the Siegburg industry attained its techical and aesthetic peak between 1550 and 1632 when the town was destroyed by Swedes in the Thirty Years' War.
The local clay, dug from shallow pits, was fine and pure and required little added sand to temper it ready for firing to a high temperature to make stoneware. Fuel was freely available from local forests. The jug was thrown on a fast wheel then the handle was separately applied to the jug when leather-hard i.e. partially dried. Undecorated funnel-necked drinking jugs were made in quantities and could be bought more cheaply than those on which extra time had been expended on decoration.

Stoneware was ideal for drinking vessels as it is non-porous even when left unglazed and a stronger material than earthenware or glass. This funnel-necked drinking jug (or Trichterhalskrug" in German) would have been used for wine or small quantities of strong beer. This plain type were quick to pot so were made in quantities, both for local sale and for export. It is not easy to date this jug precisely as the style varied little between the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century.

This funnel-necked drinking-jug is made from Siegburg clay. This type of clay proved ideal for making tough wine and beer mugs for export throughout Europe. Potters produced such pieces by throwing them quickly on a kick-wheel and then firing them to a high temperature using wood. The result was a hardwearing white stoneware.

2018-1901