The Bellarmine Jug 1550 present The Glossary of

The Bellarmine Jug 1550 -present The Glossary of Historic Ceramic Terms defines the jug as, a stoneware jug or bottle decorated with a molded bearded human face molded onto the neck. Known also as ‘Greybeards’, ‘Barmannskrugen’ or ‘Barbmans’ A round-bellied, narrow-necked vessel with a bearded mask, at first collectively called Bartmanner (bearded men) and made at Frechen, near Cologne, in the 16 th century. Bellarmine second half of the 16 th century

It was changed in mockery into the likeness of Cardinal Bellarmine, and became popular with Protestants under the name bellarmine or grey-beard as a coarse retort to the cardinal's unanswerable arguments against Protestantism in his Controversies. It is now obsolete, but many remain. New Catholic Dictionary Earliest dated bellarmine, 1550 Frank Thomas Collection The notion that bellarmines were ever intended to be representations or caricatures of Bellarmino has been satisfactorily and extensively demolished (the Cardinal was only eight years old when this example was made), and clearly the name was a post hoc jest.

The jugs originated in the Germanic areas of Europe in the early 1500's, but later turned up in many different areas of the continent. The origins of the jugs is still a mystery and the connection to St. Robert Bellarmine is also questioned. It is not until William Cartwright’s play The Ordinary in 1634 that the term bellarmine is used to describe the jug, by which time Cardinal Bellarmino, had been dead for a dozen years.

Grey-white glazed Bellarmine, 1585. Fitzwilliam Museum. Bellarmine with Tudor arms and inscription of Elizabeth I, 1594. British Museum.

Beardman jugs are stoneware: water-resistant and durable, made from dense opaque non-porous clay fired at temperatures of 1200°-1280° C (2191°-2336° F). The clay turns white, buff, gray, or red and is glazed for aesthetic reasons. STONEWARE: Clay which can be fired within 2% of total vitrification or less are considered to be stoneware. Stoneware clays are usually made up of blended clay bodies to produce a malleable, strong clay which can be worked on the potters’ wheel and fired to a vitreous state. Color and texture of stoneware clays can vary quite a lot.

Stonewares were imported from Europe to the American Colonies until the end of the Revolutionary War. Germany and England were the largest producers and exporters of stoneware. American production began in the mid 18 th century and both imitated and competed with the European imports despite trade restrictions. Large scale manufacture did not occur until immediately after the Revolutionary War. The large centers in the North spread from New Jersey and New York into New England. The southern centers were concentrated in Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania. Over time, more potteries started and began spreading further south. The tradition of salt glaze and alkaline glaze stoneware continued there well into the mid 19 th century.

Jug bodies were made on a potter's wheel. After that the handle was fitted. Relief decorations including the beard face were prepared separately in molds. The molds were usually short-lived, especially those for the beard face; sometimes they were used for only a few jugs each, which results in the many different figures shown. The lower part of the beard was damaged, enabling us to see how the face was applied to the jug.

Bartmann jug with pewter lid Stoneware salt-glaze German Rhineland, late sixteenth century (National Museums and Galleries of Wales) Bartmann jug from Cologne 1535 -50 Dark grey clay body with salt glaze. Decorated rectangular bearded face mask, foliage, fruit and blossoms and lion mask roundels. Found in London. (Museum of London) The German bellarmine jug and the English stein are the most common forms of brown salt glazed stoneware produced foreign markets.

Salt Firing The salt glaze characteristic of a beardman jug was formed by throwing common salt into the kiln during firing. The salt (sodium chloride) interacts with the silica and alumina in the clay to form a thin glaze which often has a slightly pitted surface which potters call 'orange peel'.

Salt being adding in angle iron, other methods include paper wrapped "salt burritos" or by ladling damp salt into the firebox with long handled metal scoop. Salt is usually added to the kiln between 2100 F and 2400 F.

Today many potters are adding soda ash to achieve effects similar to salt firing.

Spies-A hole left in the front and back of kiln at different levels to enable the pottter to view atmosphere, cones and draw rings during firing. Cones-Most accurate way of determining temperature during a firing. Placed in different parts of the kiln they will also indicate any variation of temperature. Draw Rings-drawing out trial rings of clay from the kiln is a way of judging how the salting is proceeding. The ‘draw rings’ should be made from the same clays that have been used to make the wares.

Cones and Draw Rings Before firing Cones and Draw Rings After firing Watching the cones through the spy hole

Drawing a ring by inserting an iron bar through the ring, then carefully lifting it out of the kiln through the spy hole.

Color is added to stoneware by dipping in a slip (liquid clay) before firing. Blue and purple wares were first developed at Raeren from c. 1587: the blue color came from cobalt, and purple from manganese. Siegburg wares are usually off-white. triple applied crowned oval medallions of the arms of the City of Amsterdam; splashes of cobalt on bearded mask brown mottled tiger surface height: 8" base diameter: 4¼" 1590 6 5/8” x 2 5/8”, 1690 splashes of cobalt blue on mask and each of three applied medallions

German, 1600 Frechen, German The lower part of jugs is usually colorless (apart from drips), because the artisan had to hold the jug while dipping it in the slip.

Tiger-ware? Bartmann bottle, Stoneware salt glaze, 17 th century Iron wash under coarse-speckled salt glaze, ‘Tiger’ware. The mottled surface may originally have been unintentional, The Frechen potters soon realized that the effect was seen as a quality and should be produced deliberately, as it was in great demand by foreign markets. Many of these ‘getigerten’, or ‘Tiger-ware’, bottles and jugs were given additional value by being embellished with silver mountings when they were imported into England.

Imports to Britain The first salt-glaze pots seen in Britain were those imported from Germany as early as the mid-fourteenth century. The majority of the brown stoneware bottles from the Rhineland were shipped to London from the Low Countries, together with the wine and beer that was decanted from the casks into the vessels. Salt-glaze stoneware ‘bellarmine’, medallion showing a man holding a cup and staff. This bottle represents the earliest salt-glaze stoneware made in England.

A rare stoneware salt-glaze bottle bearing the insignia of the crown and thistle and the initials ‘CR’ (Charles II) Height 21. 1 cm. , 1675 -1685

In Anthony Wood’s ‘Pocket Almanacs’, the entry for 30 December 1677 ‘One of the followers of Exeter Coll. , when Dr. John Prideaux was rector, as tis said, sent his servitour after 9: 00 at night to fetch some ale from the alehouse. When he came home with it under his gowne, the proctor met him and ask’d him what he made out so late and what he had under his gowne. He answered that his master had sent him to the stationer’s to borrow Bellarmine and that it was Bellarmine that he had under his arme; and so went home. Whereupon in following times, a bottle with a great belly was called a "Bellarmine", as it is to this day. ’ Dr. John Prideaux was a Rector of Exeter College from 1612 until 1643, so that – the term bellarmine was in use in the first half of the seventeenth century

John Dwight 1671– 98, English potter, founder of the Chelsea porcelain factory. The registration in 1671 of his patent for the "Mystery of transparent earthenware …" is the first certain recorded event of his life. He is considered to have laid the foundation of the pottery industry in England to have set a standard not excelled elsewhere. There are examples of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. This tall ‘bellarmine’, still containing the remnants of a charm against witchcraft. The unusual proportions of this bellarmine together with the crude mask and rudimentary seal suggest that this bottle is not of continental origin. Witches’ bottles were commonly used during the seventeenth century and were usually buried under the hearth or threshold as protection against witchcraft. (Jonathan Horne) Height 26 cm; 1685

Bellarmine Jugs continue to be excavated today. Jugs have been found in Iceland, Maine, New Jersey

Bath, Maine, near the mouth of the Kennebec River, English colonists, with George Popham as their leader, established Fort St. George in 1607, the same year Jamestown, Virginia, was founded. The Popham colonists abandoned the fort after a year and the site appears to have been vacant for two centuries. This fact becomes the major archaeological importance of the Fort St. George site: it means that we can now look at that critical, initial year of English colonization in considerable detail and begin to understand what life of the colony was like in 1607 -08.

The focus of the Popham project archaeologists during their summer 2000 excavations was to locate a building thought to have been occupied by a man named Raleigh Gilbert was second in command of the colony and probably a distant relative of George Popham. He was also the nephew of, and named after, Sir Walter Raleigh. Artifacts found at Raleigh Gilbert's house point toward its occupant as being a man of high status due to the type and quality of certain objects, like the ones shown here-fragments from a 17 th century, German-made stoneware "Bellarmine" jug.

This Bartmann jug was excavated in 1610 within the walls of James Fort. It has three medallions around its belly consisting of a coat-of-arms depicting a crowned shield that has been divided into four quarters. The first and third quarters each exhibit a single lion passant, which means that he is walking with his right paw raised. The second and fourth quarters each have two lions passant. In the first quarter, which is the upper left-hand corner of the shield, there is a heraldic device known as a fess with a label on chief. This is the band across the upper third of the escutcheon that is carrying three stylized fleurs-de-lis. It is this label that identifies the medallion as Italian and, more specifically, as representing a member of the Tuscan Anjou party of Guelfs who from medieval times were staunch supporters of the Pope. Guelf coats-of-arms have never before been recorded on German stoneware. Further, there is no documented trade of the ware in Italy, so the Bartmann jug from Pit 1 is extremely rare. It must have been commissioned by an individual, perhaps an Italian merchant, who had trade or other contacts with northwest Europe. http: //www. apva. org/ngex/c 1 bart. html