Spittoon
Category
Ceramics
Date
1730 - 1770
Materials
Ceramic
Measurements
266 mm (Height); 266 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
The Argory, County Armagh
NT 563412.1
Summary
Vase, one of a pair (later redecorated to form a five-piece garniture with 563420 and 563413), porcelain, of ‘Zhadou’ form, the spherical bowl-shaped base with tall flaring neck, painted in cobalt blue under the glaze with landscapes, line bands, China, Jingdezhen, circa 1730-70. Later painted in polychrome enamels in opaque yellow, iron-red, green, black and gold with scattered insects and foliage infilling the white ground and enhancing the underglaze decoration, England, possibly London, circa 1810-30. In China, the term ‘Zhadou’ is used to describe a particular shape used as a spittoon or cuspidor, also known as a ‘Leys jar’. It is painted in an export style so may have been initially imported to India by Dutch and English East India Company men who enjoyed chewing betel nuts or tobacco , a messy practice as once chewed the nuts need to be expectorated! The five-piece garniture may match an entry for payment for ‘5 pieces of Oriental China, £23.20.00’ recorded on July 28, 1828, in an Account Book, 1826–29, among the household papers relating to Drumsill and The Argory owned by Walter MacGeough Bond (1790-1866) (Public Record Office for Northern Ireland (PRONI) D288/E/1). This is a considerable amount of money, as on the same date was a payment for a ‘China service from Mrs. Child 42.00.00’. This type of redecoration considered an improvement was also known as ‘clobbered’. It was an eccentric taste fashionable among the wealthy gentry in the early 19th century, presumably when blue and white was out-of-fashion. Even late Ming export wares were redecorated as can be seen on examples at Ickworth, Suffolk, NT 848751. The fashion might be equated with the Brighton Pavilion taste for colourful exotic chinoiseries favoured by George IV as Prince Regent. Frederick Litchfield in 'Antiques Genuine and Spurious, an Art Experts Recollections and Cautions', London, 1921 (p. 43), noted that Sir Robert Peel, 2nd bt (1788-1850), placed a duty upon imported porcelain, allowing blue and white to enter duty free or for less duty than polychrome pieces resulting in an excess of stock and that the work was done up until the 1840s by a man called 'Unsworth' who carried on business at Hanway Yard' (behind Oxford Street at Tottenham Court Road, and where Litchfield had his curiosity shop). Patricia Ferguson, 2014 Previous entry: Spittoon (one of a pair), wide mouth. The blue porcelain is Chinese, 18th century. The colours added at Delft c 1820.