Pot with bail handles

The shape of the clay vessel is typical for the Pomeranian pots - strongly bulging, bubble-shaped body and a stable, wide, bowed ear supported on a clearly marked pouring flange. The presented piece is characterised by considerable size and interesting decoration in the form of four camels made with an overglaze stamp. Other decorative motifs, namely vertical wavy lines with dots on both sides, separating the animal motif, were hand-made. Using stamps or stencils in the decoration indicates that the vessel was made in the declining period of white-glazed vessels production at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Then, cheap industrial production started to replace mass production of artisan pottery, hence probably the atypical camel motif intended to make the offered goods more attractive. Ceramics with lead-tin glaze were famous in Pomerania in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, not all potters were involved in its production because making white glaze required high professional skills and was expensive. Potters had to choose clay with low content of iron oxides to obtain creamy or light pink colour, which would not show through the glaze layer. Pottery with a lead-tin glaze was sold mainly through numerous fairs and markets. Surplus production was delivered by potters, usually intermediaries, to the port in Szczecin, from where it travelled to countries at the Baltic Sea, the Netherlands and even England. Everywhere they were known as Stettiner Ware, and under the name, they are still recognised today.

Iwona Karwowska