June Feature Articles

Surprising Spout Prints, by DeeDee Dodd

Every once in a while, when working as an editor in the TCC Pattern and Source Print Database, one is completely surprised. It might be when a marked piece in a pattern surfaces, and it suddenly becomes possible to identify the maker of that pattern. It might be when one finds evidence of copper plates being purchased by one potter at another potter’s bankruptcy sale, explaining why the patterns of the two potters appear to be identical. It might be when one finds evidence of a pattern being re-issued under a different name decades after it was originally introduced. Or, as in the case at point in this article, it might be when one finds some unexpected pattern anomalies. Read the article.

‘Sawney’s Defence’: Anti-Catholicism, Consumption and Performance in 18th-Century Britain, by Danielle Thom

This article examines an 18th-century English transfer-printed quart mug, printed with an image derived from a popular anti-Catholic satire from about 1779. The article explores the relationship between object, image and audience, locating the mug within a nexus of Protestant masculine sociability that extended across the social hierarchy. Drawing upon existing forms of printed polemic, the mug shaped and was shaped by extra-Parliamentary political action, primarily in the form of toasting. This opened up possibilities for representation beyond those embedded in print culture, bringing a crucial performative element to an otherwise fixed point of polemical reference. Read this article.