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.

    157/326 (page 141)
    43. Small vase-like jar. To the right and the left of the Royal Arms is a lion seated on a log {cf. number 44). 181 12 x 6-8 cm. (Fig. 258.) 44. Cylindrical jar with a lion seated on a log on either side of the Royal Arms. The Arms are those of Queen Victoria. 17 x 14 cm. 45-59. Fifteen large bulbous-shaped jars with two small horizontal handles just below the shoulder. The stoneware has been painted a dark chocolate brown (now badly worn in places) and the Arms were once painted in red. Size range 35 x 14 to 42 x 17 cm. (Fig. 259.) 60. Cylindrical jar of an unusually white stoneware, with brown band around the upper 2-5 cm. Such white stoneware is unusual for these pharmaceutical containers. 11-5 x 9-7 cm. 61. Collection of cylindrical jars of various sizes, similar to numbers 40-42 {cf. figs. 256 and 257). Not all the jars are from the same set, for some have slight variations of design details. Many of the label panels have been outlined on three sides with a narrow band of red paint. Size range: 7-7 x 10-2 to 21-3 x 17 cm. III. Jars with other decorations 62-66. Five jars with painted floral decorations in red, white, and green. Transfer labels. 10-4 x 10 cm. (Fig. 260 for number 62.) IV. Undecorated jars 67-72. Five syrup jars each with a straight neck and spout. The spouts of two jars are covered with the remains of metal caps. 17-5 x 9-5 cm. (Fig. 261 for number 67.) 73. Large stoneware barrel with the painted inscription SYR.FERRI.PHOSPH.CO. 53 x 38 cm. (Fig. 262.) 74. A selection of bottles with handles extending from the shoulder to just below the rim (similar to numbers 16-20, fig. 254). Included here are two tall bellarmines (i.e., two bottles with an embossed head on the neck alleged to resemble the features of Cardinal Bellarmino). They are c. 47 cm. high, and almost certainly English. While there is nothing to connect them specifically with pharmaceutical use, they are virtually identical in size to the other bottles in this group. 182 Such bottles were used for general purposes during the preparation of fairly large quantities of medicaments. Heights range from 42 to 50 cm. 75. A large number of jars of various sizes ranging from small jars {c. 8x6 cm., some with embossed decoration just below the rim) to large containers of 6 gallon capacity with leaded lids similar to number 2. The jars are mostly brown and buff coloured but some are of a single colour—grey, buff or brown. They generally have japanned metal lids, though a few have cardboard or stoneware ones. 181 Other decorations on either sides of the Arms on pharmaceutical jars can be found, such as a lion (without a log) and mounted knights. 182 I. Noël Hume (The Cardinal's Bottle: Rhenish Stoneware Winebottles of the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries Apollo, 1955, 62, 144) points out that originally Bellarmines must primarily have been intended as bottles to contain Rhenish wines [but that] the potters were clearly aware that their products could find a market in their own right.