Inscribed and dated on the body and the cover:
Samll Cubitt, Blofield 1776
“I came in with Adam, and Outliv’d his Fall,
And hope to abide the desolation of all.
I was brought very low, at the time of the flood
Yet Daily increasd by Good Noah’s Brood.
From which Time, I’ve increased to such a Degree
That the Scripture itself, take Notice of me.
I am often at Court though not at Command,
Yet the King Highly Honour, and give me his hand.
I once was a Traytor, tho’ abating that time
I never was Charged with any Great Crime.
But hold say no more, Give over when well,
Remember I am strictly Charged not to tell.
Samll Cubitt
Blofield 1776″,
Isolated as it was, on the easternmost part of Britain in Suffolk, the Lowestoft factory produced some of the most distinctive and characterful English porcelains. Unlike other English factories, much was made as special commissions for local customers. Blofield is a Village in Norfolk about 24 miles from Lowestoft. A Samuel Cubitt is recorded as a ‘Groom’ in a parish register in Blofield on 1st June,1773.[i]
The entire front of the jug is carefully inscribed with a twelve-line riddle written in rhyming couplets within a simple scroll border, small flower sprays with cell and lattice borders.
This playful inscription has long intrigued us—and many learned friends besides. After much head-scratching, we believe we have the solution,….do contact us with your interpretation.
Geoffrey Godden in his An Illustrated Guide to Lowestoft Porcelain (1969), discusses the various types of jugs made at Lowestoft, pointing out that they are something of a speciality of the factory. This jug is hand thrown rather than moulded and has a pierced straining wall in spout. Godden argues that these were likely to be for punch.[ii] Godden illustrates another jug with an inscription by the same hand which he tentatively associates with the ‘Tulip Painter’.[iii] He records our jug in his list of dated examples but mistakenly says that it is painted in underglaze-blue.[iv]
The only other recorded example with such a long inscription, almost the pendant to ours, is undated but made for another man from the village of Blofield. The inscription here confirms Godden’s supposition as the verse is a justification for the drinking of punch. This jug is undated but must have been made at the same time as ours.
Sotheby & Co., 20 April 1948, lot 55
“The thirsty earth sucks up the showers,
Which from his urn Aquarius pours,
The trees, which wave their boughs profuse,
Imbibe the earth’s prolific Juice,
The Sea, in his prodigious cup,
Drinks all the rain and rivers up,
The Sun too thirsts and strives to drain
The Sea, the rivers, and the rain,
And nightly, when his Couse is run,
The merry Moon drinks up the Sun
Then give me Punch and tell me why
My Friends, should all things drink but I”[v]
” John Ward Blofield”
Condition:
Long dividing body crack stabilised, small chips on spout restored. Three chips to rim of cover.
Provenance:
Yallop Collection, and afterwards on loan to the Great Yarmouth Museum
Sotheby’s, London, 23rd October 1979, lot 167, The property of Mrs. M. E. de Chastelei Rondel, from the collection of the late Henry Clement Casley
Literature:
Frederick Litchfield, Pottery & Porcelain – a Guide to Collectors, 1912, p. 259
References:
Godden 1969
Geoffrey Godden, An Illustrated Guide to Lowestoft Porcelain (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1969)
Sotheby & Co., The Fine Collection of Lowestoft Porcelain, The Property of Mrs. Colman, 20 April 1948, lot 55, formerly in the Spearing Collection
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[i] I am grateful to Fr Antony Alexander for finding this reference.
[ii] They have sometimes wrongly been described as coffee pots in the literature. Godden 1969 p. 111.
[iii] Godden op.cit. p. 53.
[iv] Presumably he had only seen and black and white image.
[v] The verse is very close to a poem by Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), Anacreontics: 1. Drinking. Which is said to be a translation of a Greek poem.
Price: £16,500
