Hot water jug

ca. 1730-35

Bustling harbor activities associated with trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are featured in the painted scenes on these services. Docks are loaded with barrels and bales of cloth. European merchants and townspeople interact with exotic Middle Eastern and Asian-style figures, dressed in silk robes and wondrous plumed turbans or Chinese-style hats, to represent the distant countries in which the beverages originated.

Coffee and tea wares were a major part of the production of Meissen, the first hard-paste porcelain manufactory in Europe.

Hard paste porcelain

6 1/2 in (16.5 cm), overall height

.a 5 in. (12.7 cm), jug height

.a 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm), jug width

.a 2 1/4 in. (5.72 cm), jug diameter

.b 1 1/2 in. (3.81 cm), lid height

.b 2 1/2 in. (6.35 cm), lid width

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Nichols

91.101.3

Photo: Paul Macapia

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Porcelain Stories: From China to Europe", February 17, 2000-May 7, 2000 (2/17/2000 - 5/7/2000)

Published ReferencesEmerson, Julie, Jennifer Chen, & Mimi Gardner Gates, "Porcelain Stories, From China to Europe", Seattle Art Museum, 2000, pg. 109

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