PilgrimPottery2

Imported Pilgrim Pottery continued
The collections of Pilgrim Hall Museum

Pilgrim Hall Museum holds a wide variety of the handsome tin-glazed earthenware bowls, chargers, dishes, porringers, and teapots that were imported into the New world well into the 1700s. The Museum's earliest delftwares date to the last half of the 1600s, indicating that the majority were purchased by second and third generation members of the Old Colony's Pilgrim families. Along with fine textiles, silver and furniture, the fashionable and decorative wares symbolized prosperity and success for these pioneering families.

Tea-drinking became fashionable around 1650-1680 in Europe, and early teapots were small because tea was expensive. The Howland family teapot is a rare survivor because, unlike Chinese teapots made of porcelain, delftware teapots often cracked when filled with boiling water. The dainty pot's design and form imitate that of blue and white Chinese porcelain.
		Howland Family Teapot Andrianus Kocks Pottery Delft, Holland, 1686-1701 Tin-glazed earthenware Height 6 1/4"

The Howland Teapot is on view in Pilgrim Hall Museum's Lower Hall with the Howland "blue dash" Family Bowl, the Fuller Family salt, the blue-and-white speckled Warren Family porringer, the Standish Family loved dish, and the Cooke-Thomson family bowl splashed with blue and green tulips. Of these examples, only the teapot and the lobed dish were made in Delft, Holland. The others were produced in England potteries.

		The purple dashes on the Howland Family Bowl's rim relate it to similarly rimmed "blue-dash" decorated wares made at the Lambeth factory in London.
Howland Family Bowl Lambeth (London), about 1700 Tin-glazed earthenware Diameter 9"

This reel-shaped form with its shallow recess and scrolls at the top and broad flaring foot replicates a silver form popular in London in the 1650s. Known then as "Curles salts," the scrolls may have been used to hold another serving plate. Among similar surviving earthenware salts, the finish on the top of the scrolls shows wear. at first imported from Europe, salt was being harvested in New England by 1696 for the table and for the region's fishing industry.
		Fuller Family Salt London, 1660-1680 Tin-glazed earthenware Height 6"