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| Figure 71 Chamber pots, England, ca. 1880 and 1900. Whiteware. H. 5 3/4" and 5 1/2". (Noël Hume Collection.) Examples of diverse late Victorian chamber-pot taste. The left hand cream-colored example is molded below the girth with a basketry pattern that continues onto the unusual bifurcated handle. The upper wall and rim are transfer printed in sepia in an elaborate pattern of storks, fans, twigs, flowers, and a boy apparently pursuing a butterfly. However, the pattern is inverted and presumably intended to complement an equally decorative lid. No maker’s mark, but printed with a diamond-shaped design registration mark for August, 1880. The pot recalls the enthusiasm for Japanese textiles and ceramics that burgeoned in the late nineteenth century. The unmarked example on the right is a whiteware reminder of a paralleling taste for contrasting colors and fluid lines loosely related to the art nouveau movement. |