mug
- Museum number
- 1921,1215.88.CR
- Description
-
Mug; porcelain; printed in lilac with 'The Bird's Nest' and a 'Sportsman and Girl' and with a gilt monogram wreathed with green.
- Production date
- 1765 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 12 centimetres
-
Height: 4.70 inches
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Dawson 2007:
The rare lilac prints on this bell-shaped, thrown mug depict the 'Bird's Nest' and a 'Sportsman and Girl'. Two well-dressed couples are shown in a rural setting in these engravings, which have been attributed to Robert Hancock. Hancock probably made use of a 'Drawing Book' printed for John Bowles and Sons of Cornhill, London, in 1757 or 1758 for these designs. The 'Bird's Nest' was adopted from a painting by François Boucher.
The character of the 'Bird's Nest' is undeniably erotic; the gentleman holds a crook in his left hand while offering in his right a nest full of fledglings to a young woman seated under a tree and holding out her skirt to him with her left hand. On the other side a couple arm-in-arm in hunting costume, each carrying a whip, are accompanied by a dog, perhaps a spaniel. Here the erotic intention is less obvious and the couple are merely engaged in a country pusuit.
The gilt monogram 'GL' intertwined with small green leaves is likely to have been added in the eighteenth century outside the Worcester factory. The gilding on the rim and handle may well have been done at the same time.
An invoice addressed to Mrs Lloyd from Albert Amor of St James's, London, for a transaction of 17 february 1910 shows that the Lloyds paid £16 for 'A shaped Worcester Mug, decorated with sportsman and lady, and lovers with a bird's nest, in pink, also gilt with monogram GL, and painted with foliage in green'. The mug was purchased at Christie, Manson & Woods on 10 February 1910 from the Merton Thos Collection.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1921
- Acquisition notes
- Previously in the Merton Thoms Collection (acc. Cook).
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1921,1215.88.CR
