From the introduction of woodblock printing in China to the development of copper-plate engraving in Europe, the print medium has been used around the world to circulate knowledge. Ceramic artists across time and cultures have adapted these graphic sources as painted or transfer-printed images applied onto glazed or unglazed surfaces to express political and social issues including propaganda, self-promotion, piety, gender, national and regional identities. Long before photography, printers also included pots in engravings or other two-dimensional techniques which have broadened scholarship and encouraged debate.
Pots, Prints and Politics examines how European and Asian ceramics traditionally associated with the domestic sphere have been used by potters to challenge convention and tackle serious issues from the 14th to the 20th century. Using the British Museum’s world-renowned ceramics and prints collections as a base, the authors have challenged and interrogated a variety of ceramic objects – from teapots to chamber pots – to discover new meanings that are as relevant today as they were when they were first conceived.
Introduction (Patricia Ferguson)
1. The Convergence of Pots, Prints and Politics in China? Some 14th to 17th century examples (Yu-ping Luk, British Museum)
2. A Fourteenth Century Longquan Pot with a Dual Purpose (Elaine Buck, SOAS)
3. Hagiographical works and figure production in late Ming Fujian (Wenyuan Xin, British Museum)
4. ‘Take note’: the construction of political allegories of the Sack of Rome (1527) on Italian Renaissance maiolica in the British Museum (Dora Thornton, Curator, Goldsmith’s Company)
5. War on a Plate: the Battle of Mülhberg on a maiolica dish in the Wallace Collection, London (Elisa Sani, The Courtauld Gallery)
6. Prints and Problematic Pots: Bernard Palissy, the post-Palisseans and the Palyssistes (Claire Blakey, Burrell Collection, and Rachel King, British Museum)
7. Exotic self-reflections – fashioning Chinese porcelain for European eyes (Helen Glaister, Victoria and Albert Museum)
8. ‘Aux plaisirs des dames’: designing and redesigning a Meissen bourdaloue (Catrin Jones, Wedgwood Museum)
9. Myth and Materiality: Admiral Anson’s Chinese Armorial Dinner Service at Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire (Patricia Ferguson, British Museum)
10. From ‘stampa’ and ‘riporto’ to ‘giochi di bambini’: transfer–printing and iconographic sources at Carlo Ginori’s Porcelain Manufactory at Doccia (Alessandro Biancalana, independent art historian and author)
11. Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale (fl.1750-1801): porcelain painter and print designer (Sheila O’Connell, British Museum)
12. Potty Propaganda? ‘King Louis’ Last Interview with his Family’ on a creamware mug, 1793-95 (Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, University of Leeds)
13. Pots for Poets: Ceramics up-close in Japanese prints, including Hokusai’s Everything Concerning Horses (Mary Redfern, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin)
14. “Remember Them that are in Bonds”: A Plate Made for the Abolition Movement (Ronald W. Fuchs II, Reeves Center, Washington and Lee University, and Patricia Ferguson, British Museum)
15. Appropriated Heroes: Prints, Pots and Political Symbols in Revolutionary China (Mary Ginsberg, British Museum)
