Harvest Jug
At nearly seventeen inches tall, this monumentally scaled Harvest Jug was made around 1810 at Herculaneum Pottery in Liverpool, England. At the start of the nineteenth century, large "Stone China" vessels of this sort were widely popular and specially customized for individual owners. At harvest time, they would have been filled with beer, alcoholic cider, or homemade wine to be shared with farm workers to mark the end of a successful growing season. This jug is covered with a variety of toasts and parables related to drinking. The goat-like human that forms the spout is a Satyr, one of a troop of male companions of Dionysus, the Greek god of winemaking, the harvest, and revelry.

Harvest Jug, ca. 1810