A rare documentary Swansea, Cambrian Pottery creamware tea canister 1777

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Description

height 4 3/4 in. (12cm)

of stout cylindrical form, incised on the front and reverse with a verse within a looped foliate cartouche picked out in underglaze-blue between two rows of beading at the foot and shoulder and a narrow beaded band at the base of the neck, the base incised 'Steale' (?). Minor cracks, cover lacking, small chip to the reverse.

Provenance

Jonathan Horne Antiques, Ltd., London, illustrated in A Collection of Early English Pottery, part X, March 1990, no. 272

Literature

Jonathan Gray, "The Ridgways in Swansea", English Ceramic Circle Transactions, Vol. 17, part 3, 2001, pp. 413-419, fig. 6;
Jonathan Gray, "The Cambrian Pottery Before 1802", Welsh Ceramics in Context, 2003, pp. 19-38, fig. 2.6

Catalogue Note

The verses inscribed on the canister read:

Steal not this thing
For fear of Shame for
onit is the ones name
Jane Ridgway her Cannester

When this you see Remember me
And think when im Gone --
You may Look out and seek about
And not find Such a one 1777

Jonathan Gray notes, op. cit. (in Literature above) that a George Ridgway married a Jane Mills in Swansea on July 28, 1777. George Ridgway was almost certainly the son of the potter Ralph Ridgway, who, together with his younger son Job, had moved to Swansea and been employed by William Coles, owner of the Cambrian Pottery, since around 1770. Gray notes that a comparison of the handwriting on the canister and on George Ridgway's marriage certificate suggests that the canister, which could have been personally inscribed by George Ridgway, was presented presumably as a gift to his new wife.

The canister is one of a small group of salt-glaze stonewares and creamwares that can be attributed to the Cambrian Pottery. These include two further canisters illustrated by Gray, ibid., p. 21, figs 2.4 and 2.5; a jug, fig. 2.3; and a bowl illustrated by Jonathan Horne, A Collection of Early English Pottery, part VII, no. 183.

Harriet Goldweitz has noted that this piece is also interesting for its description of the form as a tea canister rather than a tea caddy.

The word 'Steale' indistinctly inscised on the underside of the canister - if indeed that is what it reads - perhaps can be accounted for as an experiment by the potter in spelling the word 'Steal' which appears as the first word of the verse on the front of the pot.