Jug

Gotha or Rudolstadt–Volkstedt, Germany, before 1795

Glazed porcelain, painted in cobalt.

H: 16.5 cm

Markings: “R” in blue

UMP 7643

Jug with subtle fluting painted with a blue underglaze “everlasting flower” pattern. These pear-shaped, subtly fluted forms are based on the Baroque style and are typical of porcelain factories in Thuringia (notably Gotha, Volkstedt, Wallendorf, Ilmenau, Limbach, and Gera). Enterprising town merchants established porcelain manufactories in the region in the second half of the eighteenth century, producing less labour-intensive porcelain primarily marketed to the middle class and soon becoming serious competitors to the established German brands. In place of painstaking Rococo services, they returned to bulbous Baroque forms or started to produce smooth, cylindrical Neoclassical services. The painted decoration was also more modest. A large part of the production was painted in grand feu colours, especially cobalt. As local sources of kaolin in Thuringia soon could not meet the needs of expanding production, porcelain manufactories started to use resources in Bohemia, spurring the development of the Czech porcelain industry.