On View
Not on viewCreamers
Date1840-1850
Terms
- Creamers
- Ceramic
- Staffordshire
Dimensions11.42 × 8.25 cm (4 1/2 × 3 1/4 in.)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Thomas Todd
Object numberC276A
DescriptionEarthenware with silver luster decoration. Rectangular with rounded corners.
The sugar bowl and creamer (C276, C276a) are Staffordshire and covered with a glaze (now called silver luster) that included platinum among its ingredients and was fired in a reduction kiln. Both the glaze and the forms mimic silver; these were likely coupled with a silver luster teapot. Examples of fancy ware, a pervasive taste in America that was readily exploited by manufacturers of all manner of goods.
Only ten pieces of tableware survive from the much more extensive collection of plates, bowls, glasses, and flatware that Cynthia Thoreau would have used to furnish her table. The Thoreau household generally had one or more boarders in addition to the family of six. Prudence Ward and her daughter were boarders with the Thoreaus; Cynthia Thoreau's sister Louisa lived with them for more than thirty years. Some of John and Henry's students boarded when their school was in operation, and there were other short-term boarders as well. Dinners for ten or more must have been a regular occurrence.
Around the middle of the 19th century English potteries produced dinner services of transfer-printed earthenware in great quantity and regained a good part of the American market for common tablewares that they had lost to Chinese export ware around the time of the War of 1812. The Thoreaus may have had an English dinner or tea service as many of their neighbors did, but no pieces survive.
The sugar bowl and creamer (C276, C276a) are Staffordshire and covered with a glaze (now called silver luster) that included platinum among its ingredients and was fired in a reduction kiln. Both the glaze and the forms mimic silver; these were likely coupled with a silver luster teapot. Examples of fancy ware, a pervasive taste in America that was readily exploited by manufacturers of all manner of goods.
Only ten pieces of tableware survive from the much more extensive collection of plates, bowls, glasses, and flatware that Cynthia Thoreau would have used to furnish her table. The Thoreau household generally had one or more boarders in addition to the family of six. Prudence Ward and her daughter were boarders with the Thoreaus; Cynthia Thoreau's sister Louisa lived with them for more than thirty years. Some of John and Henry's students boarded when their school was in operation, and there were other short-term boarders as well. Dinners for ten or more must have been a regular occurrence.
Around the middle of the 19th century English potteries produced dinner services of transfer-printed earthenware in great quantity and regained a good part of the American market for common tablewares that they had lost to Chinese export ware around the time of the War of 1812. The Thoreaus may have had an English dinner or tea service as many of their neighbors did, but no pieces survive.
Collections
- Henry David Thoreau Collection
