A colourful compendium

One of the features of nineteenth century ceramics in New Zealand is how colourful many of them can be. Transferware - that is, ceramic vessels decorated with underglaze transfer prints, designs quite literally transferred onto the unglazed pottery with a sheet of paper - are easily the most common household ceramic type found on nineteenth century sites in Christchurch. While much of the transferware produced in the first half of the nineteenth century was the traditional blue and white, referencing blue and white Chinese porcelain, by the second half of the nineteenth century an array of colours were available in transfer printed vessels. The colourful nature of the ceramics found in New Zealand and its fellow commonwealth colonies of Australia, South Africa and Canada has actually been considered a characteristic of British colonial material culture in the mid-late nineteenth century - particularly because it contrasts with the popularity of undecorated or moulded (but not printed or painted) white ceramics among Anglo-Americans in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Lawrence 2003: 26-27).

This is the kind of material culture analysis and patterning that I find fascinating, because it makes us ask why. In the study cited, the American trends are discussed in terms of things like class preferences and the effects of particular trade choices, while there is an obvious shared British-ness between the colonial Australian, Canadian and South African examples. It makes me think about the patterns in our household ceramics today as much as it makes me want to ask more questions of the Christchurch dataset in terms of pottery preference and socio-cultural contexts. Would you describe your household ceramics today as colourful? How many people still have a ‘good’ dinner set that’s entirely white and undecorated? Why is that the good one and - maybe - the colourful set the everyday one? Is it about the aesthetic of food + dish at the table, or is it about a sense of what constitutes ‘refined’ in table wares? What are we buying into when we purchase these items? Something to think about, that’s for sure.

Here, then, are a selection of transfer wares from the Christchurch collection. Although they’re isolated items in these photographs, it’s worth imagining them within their household setting - carrying food, at a table with decorated table cloths, particular wallpaper, a certain type of furnishing. As a result of my own aesthetic choices in presenting this blog, these examples do veer more towards complete artefacts from the 1850s-1870s period.

This gorgeous pattern is called British Birds and is an example of the classic blue and white transferware most commonly found in the nineteenth century. The shade of blue varied across different transfer prints - sometimes it’s dark enough to be called navy, while other prints are more of a soft sky blue in colour. This saucer was made by Samuel Alcock and Co. and dates to c. 1855-1959. Image: J. Garland.

Green was a popular choice for transfer prints, often found in association with floral/foliage prints and geometric style motifs, including Greek key borders. The maker of this saucer is unknown, as is the pattern name, but it likely dates to the 1850-1870s period. Image: J. Garland.

Brown might seem like an odd aesthetic choice for household table wares, but while not as common as the blues and green, it turns up more than you might think. This pattern is the Dresden pattern (one of several with this name) and the platter was made by Ralph Malkin between 1863 and 1881. Image: J. Garland.

This is a colour referred to as ‘mulberry’ by archaeologists and collectors, a sort of reddish purple or purple-ish maroon. Mulberry was a popular colour in the mid-nineteenth century (c. 1840s and 1850s), although it was produced throughout (Samford 1997). This is the Mycene pattern, but the maker is unknown. It was found in an 1860s-1870s context. Image: J. Garland.

Green again! This matching cup and saucer are decorated with the Napier pattern and were made by William Brownfield between 1850 and 1871. Image: J. Garland.

This one’s a bit fancy, with gold highlights applied over the top of the transfer print to add a bit of decadence to the design. This technique - the application of paint over the top of an underglaze transfer print is sometimes referred to as ‘clobbering’, which I find very funny. The name of this pattern is unidentified, but it was made by William Taylor Copeland c. 1847-1867. This would have been a higher end vessel than some of the others depicted here. Image: C. Watson.

Red is sometimes subsumed into the mulberry category, but this bowl is a bit brighter and more vibrant than the other mulberry example above, so I’m just going to call it red. This pattern is the Ravenna pattern, made by William Emberton c. 1851-1871. Image: J. Garland.

I just think this one’s quite pretty. Another classic blue and white pattern, this time featuring branches and leaf sprays alongside stylised flowers and scrolls. Neither the pattern name nor the maker are known for this cup. Image: C. Watson.

Another clobbered example, albeit one that’s a little more garish and a little less fancy than the previous one shown. It’s the green, I think, contrasting so much with the purple. This is the Andalusia pattern, made by John Thomson at some point before 1865. Image: C. Dickson.

And lastly, an old favourite. This idyllic pattern has the somewhat odd name “Duncan’s Rural Scenes”, referencing a series of transfer prints based on watercolours by Edward Duncan, featuring rural landscapes and scenes. It’s actually a combination of two pattern series - the central motif of the sheep is part of the Duncan Scenes, while the bramble border is part of what’s known as the Rural Scenes border pattern. This plate was made by William Taylor Copeland and dates to c. 1850-1867. Image: J. Garland.

-Jessie

References

Lawrence, S., 2003. Exporting Culture: Archaeology and the Nineteenth-Century British Empire. In Historical Archaeology, Vol. 37(1): 20-33.

Samford, P., 1997. Response to a Market: Dating English Underglaze Transfer-Printed Wares. In Historical Archaeology, Vol. 31(2): 1-30.

Missing pieces

There are a lot of artefacts in the Christchurch assemblage. We don’t have an exact count, but I’d estimate there’s somewhere between 300 000 and 400 000 objects represented. Each of these artefacts has a story, but not all of those stories are fully known. In some cases, we know where an artefact came from, who made it, who sold it, who owned it, what it was used for, how it came to be here and why it was thrown away. In other cases, we may only know the answer to one of these questions or, as is typical of archaeology, the answers to these questions only raise other questions that we don’t have answers to. Sometimes there are so many possible answers that we may never be able to narrow it down to the correct option. It’s an aspect of archaeology that gets lost a little bit in light of the attention on the information and the things we do find out – there’s still a lot of mystery in the past and sometimes that mystery, that uncertainty about how something came to be here, why it was made or bought or thrown away, becomes as much the part of an artefact story as the things we know to be true. For today’s blog, then, I’ve decided to put together a little showcase of some of the artefacts from the Christchurch assemblage whose stories are still missing a few details.

This small dish was found on a mixed commercial and residential site in Christchurch’s CBD. It’s made from porcelain, decorated with a brown slip glaze, through which another design has been etched. This style of decoration, found on porcelain, was popular in the 1720s when it was known as Batavian ware, in reference to the port of Batavia, now known as Jakarta, through which some Chinese export porcelain was transported. Some of this porcelain, which had distinctive blue and white painted decoration, was then covered with a dark brown glaze and decorated by European engravers, who etched out windows in the brown glaze to the original design or created bird and branch motifs like the one here. Here’s where the mystery starts – this dish, while it has the brown glaze and etched design, does not appear to be Chinese export porcelain, nor is there any blue hand painting visible beneath the glaze. The decoration is quite crude, not nearly as refined as some examples from the 1720s. It was also found in an 1850s-1860s context in Christchurch, and we have to wonder how it came to be there. There was something of a revival in the style in the early 1800s, but even that is too early to for the dish to have been purchased in New Zealand or even purchased in Europe and then brought over with the early European settlers. It’s most likely that it was an inherited piece, something sentimental or valuable enough to be held onto, passed down through a family and brought to Christchurch by whoever owned it. But it’s still unclear who made it and when – is it less-refined original or a later imitation of the original Batavian ware and, if so, who made it?
Image: J. Garland.

This wee gem of an artefact was found in association with an 1860s shop and residence on Colombo Street. The Younghusband family occupied the site, with John Younghusband running a stationer’s and fancy goods store at the front, while his family resided to the rear of the section. This cutlery handle, likely from a knife, has “FOR A GOOD BOY” hand carved into the side. It’s a phrase that’s not uncommon to find on children’s artefacts from the time – we find a lot of christening cups, in particular, that say things like “a present for a good girl”, usually printed or hand painted in gilt lettering. This is the only example I’ve seen of the phrase used on a knife handle and I’m curious to know how it came to be there. Was it a gift from one of the Younghusband parents to one of their sons? Was it a reminder to the child to mind their manners at the dinner table? Could it have been something carved by the boy himself, for some reason obvious to him? Was it treasured? If so, why was it thrown away? Were there accompanying forks and spoons with similarly carved handles? I will never know.
Image: J. Garland.

This chamber pot base bears the mark of Sampson Bridgwood and Son and was found on a site on Gloucester Street in central Christchurch. What’s interesting about this mark is that the name “S. Bridgwood and Son” has been painted over, for no immediately obvious reason. It may have been a piece that the manufacturer didn’t want to claim as theirs? Perhaps it was resold by someone else who pretended to be the manufacturer? Was the mark printed on the base by accident (this seems unlikely!) and subsequently covered up? Was it produced by the pottery during a period when it was unable to trade as Sampson Bridgwood and Son? I wish I knew!

Image: K .Bone.

In the nineteenth century, retailers and distributors of ceramics would sometimes stamp their own mark on the vessels they sold or exported, advertising their business and asserting their status as reputable merchants through their wares. We have a few examples of this from nineteenth century Christchurch businesses – not just on ceramics, but also on clay pipes. What’s unusual about these two pieces is that the marks refer to merchants based in Chile and Indonesia. Rogers Y Ca, or Rogers and Co., were an importing firm based out of Valparaiso, Chile from the 1880s, while Herman Salomonson was a Dutch merchant linked to the port of Semarang in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. Neither of these were big trading ports for the import/export of domestic ceramics to New Zealand specifically, although they were part of the more general global trade network in which New Zealand (and the nineteenth century British empire) participated. How did these artefacts come to be in Christchurch? Were they picked up by a sailor or merchant at some point and eventually discarded in the city when broken or no longer wanted? Are they evidence of indirect trade with these two merchants or ports – items that were sold or distributed from Valparaiso or Semarang to somewhere else - London, maybe - to Christchurch? I have theories, but no certainties, unfortunately.

Image: J. Garland

Found underneath an 1880s house in Christchurch, this message in a bottle remains one of the most simultaneously exciting and disappointing artefacts I’ve ever worked with. The excitement was in the mystery of the artefact as it was found, with the message visible in the bottle but still unknown, not to mention the thrill of unrolling it when it had been extracted, knowing that we were reading words that had been hidden for more than a century. The disappointment was in the utter mundanity of the message, which simply states that the bottle had been put under the house on this day in this year by this person. No reason is given, there is no indication of who the culprits were in relation to the house (and no secrets to be revealed!). Maybe it was put there to commemorate something (but what!?), maybe it was put there out of sheer boredom. Who were these people? Why was it witnessed? Could it have been a hoax? I still have questions.
Image: J. Garland.

Not actually from Christchurch, this one. This book, which, despite its apparently salacious title, is actually a novel with temperance themes (the man trap is a pub, get it?), was found in the walls of a nineteenth century house in Ashburton. We know who wrote it, when it was published and even what the story was – I believe the text is freely available online if anyone wants to read it. What I’m still curious about, however, is how it came to be inside the wall of a house. We know people sometimes used paper as (very flammable) insulation, but if this book was meant to have the same purpose, it would likely have been found with many more books or pieces of paper than it was. Was it secreted away by someone whose tendency towards temperance was frowned up by other people in the house? Was it lost? Why, oh, why was the book in the wall.
Image: J. Garland

-Jessie