. Bulletin - United States National Museum. Science. Figure 8.—Reproduction of a Yorktown salt- glazed stoneware mug made from local clay at the Williamsburg pottery. Height centimeters. •'igure 9.—Poor-Duality mug of probable local stoneware, discarded in the mid-18th century. Found in Williamsburg. Height centimeters; capacity 23 fluid ounces. too thick. Two test mugs fired side by side at a tem- perature of 2300° F., using thick and thin slips of iron oxide, produced the solid-purple band and the brown mottle respectively. Before dismissing the John Coke mug as merely an example o
. Bulletin - United States National Museum. Science. Figure 8.—Reproduction of a Yorktown salt- glazed stoneware mug made from local clay at the Williamsburg pottery. Height centimeters. •'igure 9.—Poor-Duality mug of probable local stoneware, discarded in the mid-18th century. Found in Williamsburg. Height centimeters; capacity 23 fluid ounces. too thick. Two test mugs fired side by side at a tem- perature of 2300° F., using thick and thin slips of iron oxide, produced the solid-purple band and the brown mottle respectively. Before dismissing the John Coke mug as merely an example of wrong slip consistency, it should be noted that this piece has none of the characteristics of the Challis mug; the handle is quite different in both size and shape and is applied without the folded terminal, the proportions are poor, and the template used for the base cordoning is so worn on its bottom edge that the wide upper cordon is more pronounced than the base itself, thus giving the whole vessel a feeling of stubby instability. In addition, the body appears to have been scraped round after the slip had been ap- plied, possibly to remove the excess. All in all, it is a miserable mug, and we may be forgiven for wondering whether it is really a product of William Rogers' operation. Some of his tankards may have been made by apprentice potters, which would account for somewhat varying shapes. But the handle is not an inept creation as handles go; it is simply an entirely different type from that used on the English stoneware that Rogers copied. Even more curious is the ques- tion of the template, which should have been dis- carded long before. While the throwing variations of Rogers' potters may have been overlooked, little can be said for a master craftsman who would allow the use of tools so worn as to mar the esthetic quality of every mug produced. We may wonder whether there was another stoneware potter at work in Vir- ginia in the mid-18th century or whether, a
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Keywords: ., bookauthorun, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectscience
