Some of our favorite ceramic pieces beg to be handled, not just seen or described. This small cream jug, its form evolved almost organically from its function, fits pleasingly in the palm of the hand. This sort of close encounter also allows one to appreciate the fine potting of the thin, but sturdy walls.

Still the visual appeal must not be ignored. Fine brushstrokes--underglaze cobalt--are applied with a confident looseness to replicate a Chinese derived pattern with house, sections of fretted fence and some imaginative plant life. We must always remember that British ceramics originate in a manufacturing setting. Our decorator, however, has managed to put some dash into the design, no matter how many of these creamers might have been decorated that day.

"Chinese House" was a popular pattern during the period of painted pearlware's dominance, clearly utilized by a number of different potters. Despite inevitable variations, the pattern follows a pattern so consistent that it can be reduced to a formula. That formula was defined by Terrance Lockett in Creamware and Pearlware (1986, Northern Ceramic Society, p.48); the decoration follows a sequence of  "tree(s)/fence/house/fence/tree(s).

Hand-painted landscapes such as this were superseded by the development of underglaze transfer-printed decoration which made more complex designs possible, but at the sacrifice of the breezy freedom we observe here.