Figure 7. — Pewter shoe buckle with the 

 inscription "no excise." Enlarged. 



have reached Rosewell soon after the mansion's com- 

 pletion. An article in The Antiquarian has an illustra- 

 tion of a house teapot that looks remarkably like 

 Rosewell, rising as it did three stories above an 

 English basement and with the top-story windows 

 being much smaller than those beneath.'' Unfortu- 

 nately it has not been possible to discover the present 

 whereabouts of this pot. 



Since most authorities estimate that white saltglaze 

 had almost ceased to be manufactured by about 

 1770,^" the presence of saltglaze fragments and the ab- 

 sence of creamwares in an excavation encourages dat- 

 ing prior to that date. It is of interest, therefore, to 

 note the request in Mann Page IPs invoice of that 

 year for the purchase in England of "4 White quart 

 stone Cans" and "4 pint . . . Do." Bailey's English 

 dictionary of 1749 describes a can or cann as "a 

 wooden Pot to drink out of." It is reasonable there- 

 fore to assume that Mann Page was ordering white 

 stoneware tankards. While this assumption in no way 

 alters the accepted dating for the Rosewell pit, it in- 

 dicates that some of the white saltglaze items need not 

 be as early as one might think. 



Descending the scale of domestic wares, we come 



31 Elma Alice Weil, "Salt-Glaze," The Antiquarian, New York, 

 February 1926, vol. 6, no. 1. 

 52 VV. B. Honey, English Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1952. 



next to the Ensilish tin-glazed earthenwares or delft- 

 wares, \\hich by the mid-18th century had lost much 

 of their appeal as tablewares, having been largely 

 superseded by while saltglaze and imported porcelain. 

 By 1770 English delftware was generally used only for 

 chamber pots, closestool pans, wash basins, and oint- 

 ment pots — the principal roles that it played at Rose- 

 well. The Mann Page II in\oice quoted earlier in 

 this report requests the acquisition of "I Dozn. white 

 wash Basons" and "I Dozn. white Chamber Pots" to 

 be sent in 1770 to his home near Fredericksburg. The 

 marked preponderance of these items over delft table- 

 wares at Rosewell suggests that his son made similar 

 purchases. 



The u.se of German stonewares, which in the 1 6th 

 and 17th centuries had been among the most impres- 

 sive products of the potter's art, declined in the 18th 

 centur%', quantity being considered more important 

 than quality, grace, or ingenuity. Cione were the 

 Knutgens and the Emmens, the great masters of Sieg- 

 burg and Raeren, gone the fine signed pieces still 

 prized as the creations of individual potters and work- 

 shops. In their place we find the ma.ss-produced tank- 

 ards, jugs, and chamber pots so lacking in distinction 

 that they can be attributed to no particular factory 

 but only to the Westerwald district of the Rhineland 

 where most of the factories were located. The finds 

 from Rosewell do nothing to soften this sorry picture, 

 being confined to jug, tankard, and chamber-pot 

 fragments as might be expected. Pieces of two jugs 

 ornamented with "G. R." medallions .serve only as 

 reminders that Rhenish potters were among the first 

 to appreciate the sales value of manufacturing specifi- 

 callv for foreign markets. But this was not something 

 that they had learned in the 18th century. In the 

 second half of the 16th century "Bellarmine" jugs had 

 been decorated with the arms of Tudor England, and 

 in the 17th centm-y we find others adorned with arms 

 and crests of patrons, towns, and wholesale exporters. 



.'Mthough no such examples were found in the Rose- 

 well pit, it may be here noted that many of the worst 

 blue and gray tankards, jugs, and chamber pots found 

 in the northern American colonies probably were the 

 products of emigrant potters who set up their kilns in 

 New York and New Jersey. These factories first 

 produced only the accepted Rhenish forms; but when 

 the results pro\ed to be coarse, chmisy, and poorly 

 colored, the potters began to develop new styles and so 

 created the ubiquitous cobalt-decorated gray stone- 

 wares so characteristic of the .American .scene in the 

 1 9th century. 



170 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY .AND TECHNOLOGY 



