Medical ceramics : a catalogue of the English and Dutch collections in the Museum of the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine / J.K. Crellin.

  • Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine
Date:
1969-
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Medical ceramics : a catalogue of the English and Dutch collections in the Museum of the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine / J.K. Crellin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    side opposite the decoration. Also uncommon are cylindrical jars, some of which are spouted. Unless otherwise stated all the jars listed below have everted necks. I. Unlabelled storage jars 25 It has already been said that it was not until about the middle of the 17th century that English pharmacy jars incorporated the name of the contents in the design. Such jars contrast markedly with the more rough and ready unlabelled ones of various sizes holding from about \ to 21b. of ointment (approximately 6x8 to 10 x 15 cm. in size). The latter jars, while commonly excavated in Britain, are not all of English manufacture. Painted pots (gallipots) were certainly imported from Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries and from Hol land in the 17th. 26 There is no reason to suppose that such pots were used solely for pharma ceutical purposes, for, clearly, they made ideal general-purpose storage vessels: in 17th- and 18th-century manuscript cookery and receipt books, for example, the gallipot is frequently mentioned. 27 Although the jars in the Wellcome Collection feature many different decorations—the arrangement below is based on this—others do exist, many in Dutch collections. 28 Whether it will ever be possible to define the country of origin is perhaps unlikely, but the study of large numbers ofjars and decorations may provide pointers. No precise dating of the majority of jars can be given, but it is safe to assume that they fall mostly within the period c. 1550— 1700. Numbers 37-47, however, are almost certainly 18th-century. All bases of the pots listed below are unglazed. a. Designs with a band of spots around both the neck and the foot. Various waist decorations. (For waist decorations see fig. 2.) Unbroken coloured bands surround the neck and foot in addition to the bands of spots. 1. Albarello, badly potted. Waist decoration 2A. Colours: all bands blue except for one 25 For the smaller unlabelled dispensing pots see p. 92. 26 Valuable information can be found in Gallipots, by L. G. Matthews, Newsletter Thames Basin Archœological Observers Group, no. 28, Dec. 1965- -Feb. 1966, pp. 9-11. There is also information about import duty on gallipots in Willan, T. S. [ed.], A Tudor Book of Rates, Manchester, 1962. For an illustration of a selection of Continental gallipots see Segers, E., Origine et Evolution des Faïences pharmaceutiques en Belgique, Rev. Méd. Pharm. (Section de Pharmacie), 1957, No. 4. The term gallipot possibly referred both to storage pots and the smaller dispensing pots (p. 92), but there is no substantiating evidence for this. 27 A valuable collection of manuscript cookery and receipt books is in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library. Gallipots are also mentioned in printed works : for example, in A New Collection of the Most Easy and Approved Methods of Preparing Baths, Essences. . . , (London, 1787), it is directed that cold cream, or pomatum for the complexion is to be kept in a large gallipot tied over with a bladder (p. 63). Dr. F. Celoria and Miss I. Davies have kindly informed me that in a grant from Charles I to Christian Wilhelme, giving Wilhelme the privilege of being the sole maker of galleyware in England, it is clear that Wilhelme made Apothecaries and Comfittmakers potts of all sorts (italics added). It is also of interest that the unlabelled storage jars feature in many 17th-century paintings of alchemical laboratories. Even so, that the gallipot was strongly linked with medicine is evidenced by the anonymous satirical print Dr. Gallipot with his Wig of Knowledge, 1774 (reproduced in M. Dorothy George's Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire, London, 1967, fig. 78). 28 See for instance Rackham, B., Early Netherlands Maiolica, London, 1926, pp. 111-112. For other examples of designs not in the Wellcome Collection see Wylde, C. H., Old English Drug and Unguent Pots found in Excavations in London, The Burlington Magazine, 1905, vii, 79-82. One interesting example is also shown by Savage, G., English. Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1961, illustration 12.