A Poodle Recovered from the Dust

A few weeks ago, I broke a beloved "tallboy" salt shaker. You can read more about that disaster here.



This launched a search for a food-safe adhesive. A colleague in art conservation suggested Paraloid b-72 prepared in acetone, which you can purchase from retailers such as Talas.

The repair was much simplier than I thought it would be. I applied some adhesive from a small tube onto the lower part of the shaker, and I firmly pressed the upper part of the shaker onto the bottom. The adhesive is clear, and you can easily peal any excess off the surface of the object.

"Snil Pige," or, "Nice Girl"

Stooping over cardboard boxes stuffed with everything from VHS tapes to sneakers, I was incredulous that I would find something worthy of Apartment C (my current apartment) until my boyfriend picked-up a small (about 2.250" high) mug decorated with gilt lettering and trim.





We both took a quick look at it and thought "nineteenth century." Seeing as each item was going for a buck, I bought it. It isn't in the best condition, but I figured I could put it to good use. I bought it in early June, but it wasn't until about two weeks ago that I Googled the non-English inscription: "translate: snil pige." Thanks to the wonders of Google I learned that in Danish, "snil pige" means "nice girl." Great, it's cheeky, and it doesn't say "nice boy" (in that case, I would have passed it along to my special friend).

I looked at this mug for weeks, my gut telling me that its Gothic lettering and run-of-the-mill ceramic body indicated to me that it was probably made in the mid-late nineteenth century. When I got around to investigating the options, I was pleased to conclude that my gut seems to have been right. That Master's degree was worth it, after all!

So, what is this? Well, we're dealing with more ceramics. (Hang tight. I promise I'll be discussing other media soon. I don't have any antique-y ceramics left to write about, anyway.) My almost laughable knowledge of ceramics brings us back to the 'ol beginner's diagnostic...it's not translucent, so it can't be porcelain, and it doesn't have an "orange peel" texture I know to associate with stoneware. That leaves us with the wide, wide world of earthenware.

I started with the mug's blue cast and the pooling of blue glaze in the crevices where the molded handle was applied to the body. Since pearlware is earthenware that is known for its blue-tinged glaze, I concluded that the mug may very well be pearlware rather than more refined earthenware from later in the nineteenth century. Although, some information floating around in cyberspace made me consider whether the mug is whitestone ware or whiteware. After looking and handling some examples of pearlware at Winterthur that had similar crazing and a similar overall texture, I decided that I was, in fact, probably holding some average quality nineteenth century peralware. (Does anyone know what the mark on the underside indicates?)



Click on the images to enlarge them. It will be easier to see the pooling glaze.

The glaze is crackling throughout, and there are several hairline fractures throughout. There is at least one large chip that has been repaired, and a portion of gilt border at the bottom edge as been in-painted in one small section. Some "nice girl" cared about this mug. This circa 1780-1800 Giacomo Boselli (Savona, Italy) cream-colored earthenware cup at the Victoria & Albert Museum appears to have similar condition issues, further reinforcing my inclination that the snil pig mug is earthenware (possibly pearlware):



Pearlware (a variety of earthenware) became available to consumers around 1780, and it was produced through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. It was first developed by Josiah Wedgwood for the purpose competing with blue-decorated Chinese porcelain. Fine pearlware collected by museums such as Winterthur, fine and decorative arts museums, house museums, etc., was made into a wide variety of domestic tablewares and tools. For examples of pearlware, search for "pearlware" in the New-York Historical Society's online collections database.

In addition to being used to make everyday domestic ceramic wares, pearlware (and earthenware more generally) was also used to make children's ceramic play or toy tablewares, gift, and "souvenir" mugs. According to Noël Riley, Children's earthenwares such as these "varied enormously" when it came to "quality of potting." Page 12 of a report documenting archaeological studies conducted at North 7th and Arch Streets in Philadelphia notes and/or includes images of one "A present for a good girl" mug, one "A gift for Elizabeth" mug, and one "A present for my dear boy" mug unearthed at the site. For more examples, see the circa 1810 Staffordshire, England, toy tea service earthenware teacup at the Victoria & Albert Museum below:



Although I have not found anything quite like the snil pige mug, I think it's fair to conclude that the snil pige mug originally functioned similarly to the mugs and other forms which feature individual children's names and/or scenes and sayings such as "A present for my dear boy." Children’s ceramics tend to feature printed designs and inscriptions, whereas the snil pig mug design and inscription appear to have been hand-applied (as revealed thanks to an inspection with a 10x loop [a recommended antiquing tool]. As one 1998 New York Times article points out, some of these children's ceramics were made for the "bad' set.

The snil pige mug may also be related to later nineteenth-century mugs made from more crude ceramics and decorated with sayings, names, or terms of endearment. Search for "mug" within the "antiques" category on eBay, and you'll see many of examples such mugs. These nineteenth-century children's ceramics were less expensive alternatives to the more traditional silver or porcelain presentation mugs, spoons, etc., which were and continue to be popular gifts for events such as births and christenings.

Since perlaware wasn't made until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, I was comfortable with my conclusion that the mug was probably made in the mid-late nineteenth century. Furthermore, in addition to the ceramic body’s era of production and the condition (discussed above), the hand-applied Gothic lettering tipped me off regarding the mug's second-third quarter of the nineteenth century origins. The text is executed in Gothic or blackface lettering, a typeface that originated with the birth of printing in the fifteenth century and that enjoyed a revival in the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. The typeface immediately brought to my mind the look of the wool on perforated cardboard mottoes of the 1870s and 80s. Kenneth L. Ames’ chapter on mottoes in Death in the Dining Room interprets the mid-late nineteenth-century use of this and variations on this typeface on a variety of media as an example of the Victorians’ “fascination with hyperbole.”

I haven’t answered all the questions this mug raises. If pearlware production centered in Staffordshire, why is this mug adorned with a Danish inscription? Why haven’t I been able to find similar examples? How did this mug end-up in the U.S.? Was the mug meant to function similarly to the ways in which children’s mugs functioned in the U.S. and England? If it did, is it fair to equate the phrase "good girl" with "nice girl"?

Despite these remaining questions, I have re-established (in part) this salvaged “nice girl” mug’s cultural context, and I have adapted it for reuse as a desktop binder clip holder.

Further Reading

For more on children's ceramics:

1) Wendy Moonan, "Antiques; Presents for Children, Good and Bad," New York Times, July 17, 1998, accessed August 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/17/arts/antiques-presents-for-children-good-and-bad.html.

2) Rick Pardue, Ceramics for Children, 1650-1835 (Winston-Salem, NC: Old Salem Museums & Gardens, c2008).

3) Noël Riley, Gifts for Good Children: The History of Children's China (Ilminster, Somerset, England: R. Dennis, 1991).

For more on ceramics identification:

1) "English Ceramic Sequence," Anthropology 313 course web site, Texas A&M University, accessed August 2010, http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/313/ceramics/period-1.htm.

For more on Pearlware (Earthenware):

1) George Miller and Robin Hunter, How Creamware Got the Blues: the Origins of China Glaze and Pearlware[S.l. : s.n., 2001?].

For more on Victorian mottoes and Gothic or blackface typefaces:

1) Kenneth L. Ames, "Words to Live By," in Death in the Dining Room & Other Tales of Victorian Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 97-149.

2) Roxane Jubert, Typography and Graphic Design: From Antiquity to the Present (Paris: Flammarion, 2006).

3) Geoffrey Dowding, An Introduction to the History of Printing Types: An Illustrated Summary of the Main Stages in the Development of Type Design from 1440 up to the Present Day (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998).

A Poodle Bites the Dust

Since moving to Delaware about three years ago, I have traded more and more kitchen/dining space for living space as I moved from apartment A to apartment B to apartment C. Apartment C's kitchen is a little cramped, but certainly not unmanagemable. I did not and do not have a lot of special kitchen supplies, but I did purchase a set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers in the shape of two large poodles when I was preparing to move to apartment A in 2007.

Last weekend, after many a close call (I haven't been able to settle on a good resting place for the pair inside apartment kitchen C, and they have come close to death on numerous occasions since I moved into apartment C in June), I broke one. As I was washing dishes in the sink, I swiftly knocked Salt Poodle into my coffee mug. Before I knew it, I was plucking Salt Poodle's head from my stale, cold coffee.

I was so upset, I almost threw Salt Poodle and his buddy directly into the trash before my boyfriend reasoned, "just glue it back together!"

Hmph. Glue it back together. Whatever.

...well, I have not seen any salt and pepper shakers unusal enough to grace my kitchen counter in quite a while, so I rinsed-out Salt and plan to repair him at a later date once I've recovered from the ititial shock and have identified a food-friendly advesive.

But how did I, someone who does not care for dogs, come to acquire such ridiclous-looking and ugly (friends' and realives' words, not mine) salt and pepper shakers in the shape of giant poodles?

When I was a kid, my mom and her female relatives whiled away many a summer afternoon at an indoor antique co-op/mall in northeastern Pennsyvania. I hated it at first, but I grew to relish the adventures. This particular antique co-op includes a bowling alley on the upper floor, and it smells like mold, cigarette smoke, mildew, mold, and cigarette smoke. The place is not and probably never will be airconditioned (for your browsing ejoyment), and half the vendors are either never at their stalls or leave prior to 11 AM on the weekends (when half the world goes antiquing). Over the years, I have purchsed few items at this particular establishment, although I have distinct memories of lusting after specific objects such as a rhinestore tiara. (By the way, if you're interested in tiaras, crowns, etc., I recommend Tiara by Diana Scarisbrick.) At the tender age of about 10, I inquired for the price of said tiara and, upon being told [apologetically] that it was marked $100, I sheepishly put my $95 back inside my wallet, unaware that I may have had a chance to haggle to become a princess.

The weekend my extended family was in town for my college graduation party, we all decided to make the Sunday pilgrimage to the antique co-op in quetsion. It was just a few weeks before I was moving to apartment A, and I was on the lookout for decorative objects and kitchen wares. I spotted the poodles on the second floor of the antique co-op and purchsed them almost instantly from a woman who also sold jewelry and other small trinkets. $12? I didn't even haggle. Within moments, I disbursed the cash and was the proud owner of used salt and pepper shakers designed to look like poodles. The appeal? They look goofy and make me chuckle to myself, and I may have thought in the back of my mind that someone who studies material culture at the graduate level should have at least one "conversation piece" per space. If I didn't select them to entice classmates into my kitchen, genetics may have played a role. My maternal grandmother boasted a large collection of ceramic and metal chinoiserie salt and pepper shakers which she displayed in her picture window. Perhaps there is a vintage salt and pepper shaker collecting gene. I have yet to accumulate a second set (and thus starting forming a collection of salt and pepper shakers).

In any case, for the past three years, these poodles have served me well, despite my having to plug them-up using index card shards and scotch tape lest they leak salt and pepper grains all over the counter. We'll see if I can find another quirky salt and pepper shaker set before I get around to repairing the first set.

UPDATE, 25 July 2010

My curiosity got the better of me. I found an idential pair of salt and pepper shakers for sale on Ebay. The Ebay pair is priced at $49.99 (or best offer...all the more reason to find a good adhesive and a great reason to make fun of those who have and continue to scoff at the pair), and it retains a removable tag (typical for such mid-century imports) that gives me some manufacture information. My pair was “Made in Japan” by a company called Wales. Based on the style of the label’s typeface the fact that ceramics marked as such were made in Japan between 1921 and 1945 or between 1952 and today, I am assuming that they date from the second or third quarter of the twentieth century. By the mid twentieth century, less costly imported ceramics such as these took business away from American mid-western and western ceramics manufactories.

Should you want to learn more about collecting “novelty” salt and pepper shakers (no chinoiserie salt and pepper shakers need apply here), the Novelty Salt and Pepper Shaker Club website (sister club to the Antique Glass Salt and Sugar Shaker Club) offers some basic collecting information. I learned that my poodles are called a "pair," not a "set." I also learned that today's collectors refer to this "design type" as "longboys" or "tallboys." "Originally" they were known "long" or "tall fellows." Tallboys are six or more inches tall or long tend to be in the form of animals. The NSPSC pictures a few examples of tallboys, including a pair of cats that resemble my poodles.

As the current owners of the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum (which is for sale) pointed out, salt and pepper shakers are in everyone's kitchen, and they "hold[] two of the most commonly used spices." (It seems that salt and pepper were first paired on American tables in the mid nineteenth century. I'll do some more investigating at the library.) Now, I have a better understanding about twentieth century Japanese ceramics and American twentieth century consumption of Japanese ceramics, and I will never look at a grouping a salt and pepper shakers at an antique shop, co-op, or mall the same way again.

UPDATE, 31 July 2010

Indeed, in America, although salt and pepper had been paired together and stored within table tools such as castors at least since the eighteenth century, pairs of salt and pepper "shakers" came on the scene in the late nineteenth century.

Further Reading

For a concise guide to collecting all kinds of twentieth century “collectible” objects and some information on c20 Japanese ceramics production and American consumption of Japanese ceramics, see Ralph and Terry Kovel, Kovel’s American Collectibles, 1900-2000 (New York: Random House, 2007).

For the history of salt, pepper, and other foodstuffs, see The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, ed. Andrew F. Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

A Mug for the Office

And the sons of the Puritan pioneers/Saw the toil and thrift of a hundred years/Spoiled in an hour.
From "The Lay of Groton Height," by Leonard Woolsey Bacon¹

On September 6, 1781, during the American Revolutionary War, British troops attacked New London and Groton, Connecticut. Many of Connecticut's "sons of the Puritan pioneers" lost their lives, their homes, businesses, churches, and their weapons cache. Thus, as the epigraph suggests, southeastern Connecticut "toil and thrift" was "Spoiled." Although the region lost soldiers, civilians, weapons, and material goods, many individuals survived to commemorate the event through the erection of a monument and a late nineteenth-century Centennial Celebration. One teabowl and saucer associated with the Burning of New London, the Battle of Groton Heights, and the Centennial commemoration of those events survived and found its way to a Delaware tag sale.

The hunt

I have been on the lookout for mug with charater for use at work. Last May, I pushed my boyfriend over for a prospective drinking vessel I spotted at a local tag sale. Among the mid-1990s chachka, we both spotted a cluster of old porcelain teabowls and saucers. We started picking them up and concluded that, although they weren't in the best condition, they were, in fact, early eighteenth-, mid-nineteenth century objects and therefore deserved some scrutiny. (There is a time and place for a circa 1990 coffee mug, but we were on the hunt for older items at good prices.)
As I cradled one teabowl in my hands, my boyfriend picked-up the matching saucer and discovered a note inscribed in ink:

"Bristolware./Given me by Mrs. Sophy Noyes/Stonington [Connecticut]. It antedates the burning of New London [Connecticut] Sep. 6./1781 because a companion/to it was picked-up in the/bushes the week after./It was on exhibition at the/Groton Centennial Sep. 6/1881/ 1243 [also inscribed in white paint on the saucer]/Bristolware manufactured/between 1768-1781/Maria Lake Peabody."



Old porcelain teabowl and saucer. Provenance. Less than $20.

I exclaimed: "That's mine. I saw it first. I'm buying it." Our fellow tag-salers chucked to themselves.

I still don't have a mug for work, but the teabowl and saucer I purchased last May facilitated my learning a lot about late-eighteenth-century porcelain and a Revolutionary-era battle, the latter of which remains important to southeastern Connecticut's heritage.

The materials, the design, and the manufacture

Ceramics is not my specialty, but I know the basics. The inscription identifies the teabowl and saucer as Bristolware. Today, English Bristolware can refer to delft (or tin-glazed earthenware) ceramics made in Bristol, England, and it may not necessarily refer to porcelain made in Bristol or its associated manufactory sites.² A quick look at the teabowl and saucer's translucency confirms that the set is made from porcelain, ruling out the possibility that the set could be earthenware. The decorative motifs are similar to decorative motifs popular during the era (1768-1781) noted in the inscription. Based on the material and the design, the relics are late eighteenth-century porcelain, but are they Bristol porcelain? It turns out that my teabowl and saucer are less ornate than Bristol porcelain pictured in secondary sources such as Simon Spero's Lund's Bristol and early Worcester porcelain 1750-58 : the A. J. Smith Collection (London: C and J Smith, c2006).

Knowing that I was dealing with late-eighteenth century porcelain, I browsed some online museum collections. Instead of using geographic search terms in combination with production dates and media type, I narrowed my search by era (1765-1810) and media (porcelain) in hopes of finding similar designs that are not associated with Bristol porcelain. I found some design similarities in a Victoria & Albert Museum cup, teabowl, and saucer attributed to New Hall manufactories (which were at Staffordshire and Shelton, England).³


Cup, teabowl, and saucer, hard-paste porcelain with a lead glaze, painted in enamels, New Hall porcelain factory, Staffordshire, ca. 1790-1800, Given by Arthur Myers Smith, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, C.728 to B-1921.

The floral motif, the colors, and the trim on the V&A set are all similar to those on my teabowl and saucer. Although the New Hall designs are similar to my cup and saucer's designs, my specimens feature less-sophisticated (or, more quickly rendered) variations of New Hall decoration. Further, unless the mark is underneath the pasted inscription, the teabowl and saucer lack New Hall (or any) manufacture's mark.⁴ At this point, I decided that my teabowl and saucer were probably not made in England.

Asian (often Chinese) sources inspired mid-late eighteenth-century English porcelain design. The Asian-looking character painted on the bowl made me suspect (as a colleague suggested) that my teabowl and saucer may not be European-made in the first place. After ruling out the relics' origins suggested in the inscription, I flipped through a few Chinese export porcelain books and spotted some designs that are similar (but not identical) to those featured on my teabowl and saucer. In addition, I found a few similarly decorated porcelain examples at the Winterthur Museum (namely, cup 1954.0077.012, pounce pot 1961.1595, and teabowl 1982.0282), all of which are attributed to Jingdezhen, China, where the bulk of Chinese export porcelain was produced.⁵ Therefore, my "Bristolware" teabowl and saucer are probably examples of 1780s Chinese export porcelain. The mis-attribution on the inscription is logical, though, given the fact that English porcelain from Bristol, New Hall, and realated sites features designs similar to Chinese export designs from the same era.

The provenance: the bloodshed

Thus, the teabowl and saucer are contemporaneous with the 1781 "Burning of New London [Connecticut]." The Burning of New London is typically discussed in conjunction with the Battle of Groton Heights. For example, William Wallace Harris' The battle of Groton heights (1882) refers to the event as "the Burning of New London and Groton, the Battle of Groton Heights, and the Massacre in Fort Griswald [in Groton, across the River from New London]."

Any way you refer to it, on September 6, 1781, Benedict Arnold (of traitor fame) and his British troops set fire to American troops' (led by Colonel William Ledyard) supplies stored in the region. The ensuing battle occurred shortly prior to the British surrender at Yorktown and "sealed [Arnold's] reputation as a public enemy." Over 140 homes, businesses, workshops, public buildings, and vessels burned, and 83 Americans died in the conflict. As New London County Historical Society's executive director Edward Baker explains in an article about Benedict Arnold's legacy, "New London and Groton were almost entirely leveled."⁶ A monument commemorating the battle was dedicated in 1830, and the event remains important to local history. The battle's centennial inspired a flurry of publications and a Centennial Celebration featuring, among other goings-on, an exhibition of local relics.

The provenance: the commemoration

That's where the teabowl and saucer come into the story. As documented in Harris' The battle of Groton heights (1882), the Centennial celebration committee took care of Centennial details ranging from repairing the 1830 monument to the fireworks, but the committee left the exhibition planning up to the ladies of New London, Groton, Ledyard, and Stonington, Connecticut. The Centennial was a regional event. As Harris notes, "all [effort] was given gladly by these public-spirited members [of the planning committees], who still felt a thrill at the thought of the patriotism of family ancestors [displayed at the Burning, the Battle, and the Massacre]."⁷ But were Sophia Noyes and Maria Lake Peabody, whose names appear on the inscription, from Connecticut, and, if so, were they involved in the exhibition planning? Furthermore, did the teabowl and saucer appear in the exhibition?

John Warner Barber (1798-1885), Groton Monument and Fort Griswold, sketch for Barber's Historical Collections of Connecticut (New Haven, Conn.: Durrie & Peck and J.W. Barber, 1837).

The provenance: the women

Ancestry Library Edition census data gives me some idea as to whether these women existed. One of two Sophia Noyeses is likely the Sophy noted on the saucer. According to the 1850, 1860, and 1870 censuses, one Sophia was born in Connecticut circa 1795, and she was living in Stonington as a "housekeeper" as late as 1870. By the time the Centennial had rolled around, if she was still living, Sophy would have been about 87.

The other Stonington, Connecticut, Sophy is listed in the 1900 and 1920 censuses as Sophia A. Noyes and Sophia Noyes, respectively. She was born circa 1865, and she would have been about 17 at the time of the Centennial. The 1880 and 1900 censuses list Maria Peabody and Maria L. peabody, repectively, another housekeeper of Stonington, as having been born circa 1839, making her about 41 at the time of the Centennial. According to Harris's The Battle of Groton Heights, no Noyeses or Peabodys related to the women mentioned on the saucer seem to have been involved with the Centennial's planning. Additional searches using Ancestry Library Edition and America's Historical Newspapers contributed no new information. Therefore, one of two Sophys may be the Sophy in question, and the identified Maria may very well be the Maria who ended-up with the teabowl, the saucer, and a tale.

The provenence: the exhibition

As noted above, the exhibition was one facet of a carefully orchestrated Centennial event. Based on the list of relics published in the pamphlet Catalogue of articles shown at the Groton Heights Centennial Loan Exhibition, Groton, Conn., Sept. 6, 7, and 8, 1881 (available at the Winterthur Library, the Connecticut College Library, and the Duke University Library), I suspect that the women who organized the exhibition called upon friends, relatives, and neighbors to contribute objects associated with the battle itself, the Revolutionary War, American life, or family history.⁸ Here is a sampling of the 763 objects that appeared in the Groton Heights Centennial Loan Exhibition:

"24. Pewter platter, 150 years old," loaned by Mrs. Frothingham

"73. Fragment of Col. Ledyard's Vest.," loaned by Mrs. Adaline Miner

"378. Bed valance, made from flax grown in Stonington 100 years ago," loaned by Mrs. Mary Copp Williams

"432. Cane brought from Scotland in 1664 by Thos. Strickland, one of the four brothers of the original settlers in this country, now owned by the 7th Thos. Strickland in lineal descent," loaned, not surprisingly, by Thomas Strickland

"621. Quadrant, very old," loaned by New London Historical Society

"660. Pin cushion, made from brocade of Gen. Washington's easy chair," loaned by Edgar M. Warner

"745. fragment of Gen. Washington’s coffin," loaned by Mrs. Cash

Along with objects owned or used by famous individuals and miscellaneous "old" bits of material life, the Groton Exhibition included nine sets of cups (or teabowls) and saucers. Most are anonymous, linked only to their loaners. No. 207, however, may refer to the teabowl and saucer in question:

"Cup and saucer. Buried in New London in 1781," loaned by Mrs. S. P. Smith

This final clue further substantiates the veracity of the saucer's inscription. However, Mrs. S. P. Smith's story remains something of a mystery. A Connecticut-born S. P. Smith lived in Wisconsin with his Connecticut-born wife Ursula (also spelled Ulserra and Arsilla in the census)at least between 1860 and 1900. If this is the correct Connecticut Mrs. S. P. Smith, it is unclear as to how she was invovled in the long-distance loan of a two-hundred-year-old "harp backed chair" and the teabowl and saucer in question.

Conclusion

Which teabowl and saucer set was on exhibition? The teabowl and saucer found "in the bushes" a week after the burning, or the teabowl and saucer I purchased? I have interpreted the inscription to imply that this teabowl and saucer was on exhibition but that the set looks like a teabowl and saucer that were found "in the bushes" after that fateful September day in New London. Either way, the exhibition's catalogue documents the loaning of hundreds of relics imbued by their 1880s owners with remembrances of an event that shaped and continues to shape one region's understanding of and appreciation for its heritage. As Harris expounds, "[the Battle of Groton Heights/Burning of New London Centennial] must lead to a more thorough appreciation of our historic events, and stimulate the feeling of patriotism that will prepare the youth who have participated in it to emulate, should occasion require, the sacrifice that has been so nobly commemorated." ⁹ It is probable that this Chinese export teabowl and saucer would be deemed mundane and commonplace under most circumstances. However, the role the set played in the Centennial exhibition, its inscription, and its survival encapsulate the patriotism and curiousity inspired by all the exhibition relics' associations with the Burning of New London.

As this entry's epigraph suggests, New London residents mourned the material and mortal losses brought about by the Burning of New London and the Battle of Groton Heights. Perhaps relics--commonplace examples such as a Chinese export teabowl and saucer or extraordinary examples such as a scrap of Col. Ledyard's Vest--displayed at the Centennial Exhibition were all the more cherished by their loaners and the exhibition attendees because these objects represent New London's extant proof of "toil and thrift." It is likely that the exhibition served multiple agendas, but each exhibition object represented a reason for locals to take pride in their ancestors' sacrifices and to continue contributing to their town's, region's, and country's prosperity.

Alas, no mug for the office, but I have a piece of New England history with a great story.

Notes

1. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, "The Lay of Groton Height", in The battle of Groton Heights: a collection of narratives, official reports, records, etc., of the storming of Fort Griswold, the massacre of its garrison, and the burning of New London by British troops under the command of Brig.-Gen. Benedict Arnold, on the sixth of September, 1781, by William Wallace Harris (New London, Connecticut: C. Allyn, 1882), 366-370, accessed using Google Books.

2. Furthermore, it seems that twentieth-century "Bristolware" tins are collectible today. As a modifier, "Bristol" has also been applied to glass made in the same region. Also, note that decorative arts terminology evolves continuously and is not applied uniformly across the field.

3. This is not surprising, as New Hall porcelain is sometimes grouped with Bristol and Plymouth porcelain for study purposes since some of the same individuals and patents were involved at manufactories associated with these groups of porcelain. Sophy Noyes and Maria Lake Peabody may have been referred to their teabowl and saucer as "Bristolware" because it resembled some Bristol porcelain made in the associated region in England.

4. I have not determined what the "1239" inscribed on the saucer's underside means. It may be an old museum accession number or a personal collection inventory number.

5. I need to do more research to figure out if the character on the bottom of the bowl has any special significance. Ronald W. Fuchs II in collaboration with David S. Howard, Made in China: Export Porcelain from the Leo and Doris Hodroff Collection at Winterthur (Winterthur: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 2005), 20.

6. Edward Baker, "Benedict Arnold," New London County Historical Society, June 3, 2009, . First published in Hog River Journal, Fall 2006.

7. William Wallace Harris, The battle of Groton Heights: a collection of narratives, official reports, records, etc., of the storming of Fort Griswold, the massacre of its garrison, and the burning of New London by British troops under the command of Brig.-Gen. Benedict Arnold, on the sixth of September, 1781 (New London, Connecticut: C. Allyn, 1882), 305, accessed using Google Books.

8. Catalogue of articles shown at the Groton Heights Centennial Loan Exhibition, Groton, Conn., Sept. 6, 7, and 8, 1881 (1881).

9. Harris, 306.

Further reading

New London County Historical Society

Fort Griswald Battlefield State Park

Connecticut Museum Quest

For more on the first hard-paste porcelain production in England, see the Plymouth City and Art Gallery web site.

For more on New Hall porcelain, see David Holgate, New Hall and Its Imitators (London: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1971).