16th-Century Elizabethan Tigerware Jug

This exceptionally rare silver-gilt mounted tigerware jug was crafted during the Elizabethan period. This handsome vessel is adorned with highly elaborate silver-gilt mounts, including a boldly repousséd hinged lid, which beautifully contrasts the mottled texture of the stoneware body. To find one of these extraordinary jugs, dating to over 400 years, is truly remarkable not only due to the fragility of the stoneware, but also because these pieces were in fashion for a relatively short time, from approximately 1550 to 1630. Still in excellent condition, this jug is of exemplary artistry and craftsmanship.

Hallmarked London, 1580

10” high

Tigerware is also known as salt-glazed stoneware, which is stoneware with a thin, clear glaze with a slightly pitted texture, produced by throwing salt into the kiln during firing. There are two basic types. Salt-glazed coarse stoneware was developed along the Rhine at Westerwald, Germany, for bottles and tankards, and was adapted by British potters such as John Dwight of Fulham in the late 17th century. Although the clay is grey, a wash of iron oxide matures it to a brown surface color, hence its alternative name of brown stoneware. Silver-mounted tigerware jugs such as this enjoyed popularity in the mid-17th century almost certainly due to the greater availability of the metal during this time, when silver pouring vessels became the norm. Salt-glazed fine white stoneware, which incorporated finer-grained white clay, was introduced in Staffordshire potteries around 1720 as a substitute for Chinese porcelain.