Unknown Maker, German

This jug embodies both local styles and international influences. Made of traditional German stoneware, it is embellished with English mounts made of silver that was most likely mined in the Americas.

Tigerware is an English term for German mottled-brown glazed stoneware made along the Rhine River. Unlike glass versions, stoneware jugs were affordable-and therefore common-in England in the 1500s and 1600s. By the mid-1500s, the addition of elaborate metal mounts to stoneware vessels became popular. A London goldsmith using the stamp I.C. mounted this jug with a gilded-silver cover and base. They are decorated with heraldic lion-mask shields, clusters of fruit, and a thumbpiece in the form of a merman.