Unusual Artifacts: A Medicine Pot and Cover, 1540-55

Apothecary Pot and Cover
Italy, 1540-1555
The Victoria & Albert Museum

During the Middle Ages, as the art of creating medicines become more prominent and standardized, books of the ingredients of medicines were shared by apothecaries, and soon, an increasing demand for appropriate storage vessels for medicines developed.

Pharmacies were, subsequently, a major source of income for makers of maiolica.  As the V&A tells us, “The pharmacies and dispensaries of monastic orders, hospitals and noble families required large numbers of jars to store their various herbs, roots, syrups, pills, ointments and sweetmeats. These were sometimes marked with coats of arms or other heraldic devices.”

Such drug containers , inscribed with their contents, began to be produced in the middle of the Fifteenth Century.  Non-inscribed vessels continued to be made.  The  upside of these were that they could be washed and refused for other tinctures.

The shape of this Italian, Sixteenth-Century pharmacy bottle is based on Fifteenth Century  glassware.  It is made with a lid.  On the front, in a panel enclosed by a decorative band with leafy scrolls scratched through a blue ground, is a half-length figure of a bearded man in profile against a blue sky. Below this panel, a scroll is inscribed in Gothic characters with the name of the contents: “A. Eufragia.”  This was also called “Eyebright water,” a suspension of roses and herbs which was meant to cure illnesses of the eye, and, in doing so, strengthen the head and promote better memory.

This was made in Castelli, Italy, between 1540 and 1555 by the workshop of one Orazio Pompei.

The Home Beautiful: A Hand-Painted Wedgwood Dish Featuring Mr. Punch

Wedgwood Dish
Painted by Vivian Cooke
Nineteenth Century
All images from The Victoria & Albert Museum

"Mr. Punch," states this cream-glazed Wedgwood pottery dish.  Heralding from Staffordshire, it's been painted in red overglaze with an image of our Punchinello, as he was when performed by Professor Piccini.  He's framed within a handsome scalloped border.

The reverse of the dish  is stamped with the mark: "Wedgwood of Etruria & Barlaston" and painted by the artist: "DECORATED BY VIVIAN COOKE."

Click images for larger versions

Object of the Day: Museum Edition: A Medicine Pot and Cover, 1540-55

Apothecary Pot and Cover
Italy, 1540-1555
The Victoria & Albert Museum

During the Middle Ages, as the art of creating medicines become more prominent and standardized, books of the ingredients of medicines were shared by apothecaries, and soon, an increasing demand for appropriate storage vessels for medicines developed.

Pharmacies were, subsequently, a major source of income for makers of maiolica.  As the V&A tells us, “The pharmacies and dispensaries of monastic orders, hospitals and noble families required large numbers of jars to store their various herbs, roots, syrups, pills, ointments and sweetmeats. These were sometimes marked with coats of arms or other heraldic devices.”

Such drug containers , inscribed with their contents, began to be produced in the middle of the Fifteenth Century.  Non-inscribed vessels continued to be made.  The  upside of these were that they could be washed and refused for other tinctures.

The shape of this Italian, Sixteenth-Century pharmacy bottle is based on Fifteenth Century  glassware.  It is made with a lid.  On the front, in a panel enclosed by a decorative band with leafy scrolls scratched through a blue ground, is a half-length figure of a bearded man in profile against a blue sky. Below this panel, a scroll is inscribed in Gothic characters with the name of the contents: “A. Eufragia.”  This was also called “Eyebright water,” a suspension of roses and herbs which was meant to cure illnesses of the eye, and, in doing so, strengthen the head and promote better memory.

This was made in Castelli, Italy, between 1540 and 1555 by the workshop of one Orazio Pompei.

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: A Martin-ware Tobacco Jar, 1903

“If Martin-ware [… has] not the transparency of porcelain nor the elaborately and costly ornamentation of Sèvres [it is] pure and honest art work.”

Cosmo Monkhouse, the renowned British art critic described the work of the Martin Brothers' studio in “The Magazine of Art” in 1882 with the above statement. The studio was founded by the allegedly eccentric founder Robert Wallace Martin and his siblings Charles, Walter and Edwin who, together, enjoyed a life of artistic experimentation with the forms of the flora and fauna of the sixteenth-century potter Bernard Palissy.

The brothers' works, known as Martinware, relied on grotesque and peculiar forms which demonstrated  a quirky amalgam of fantasy and imagination—producing a series of anthropomorphic lidded wares, known overall as “tobacco jars.”  

Martinware Bird, 1903
Glazed Pottery on wooden stand.
The Victoria and Albert Museum

Some art historians conjecture that the Brothers Martin were inspired by the traditional English owl-shaped pottery jugs as their wares often took on fantastical fowl forms.  Martin-ware birds are not of any known species—evading classification.  The heads are often made to swivel in odd directions, further adding to their whimsy.

Here, we see an example of a Martinware Tobacco Jar and lid in the form of a bird.  Like its pottery brethren, it features a large head - tapering towards the feet.   It was made in 1903 to be displayed on a wooden stand.  Marked “Martin Bros London & Southall 11-1903,” this jar, like other similar examples is known as a “Wally Bird” and was meant to appeal to a society that was growing to appreciate Japanese-inspired art.

The tobacco jar joins one of its owl brothers.