A study collection of English delftware pharmacy or apothecary pots, 17th-19th century

A study collection of English delftware pharmacy or apothecary pots, 17th-19th century Mostly plain white and many in excavated condition, the collection including a London shallow pot inscribed in blue 'DELESCOT', a Mortlake or Lambeth cylindrical pot inscribed in manganese to promote Gervais, a Parisian perfumier, and a curious miniature ovoid pot inscribed 'B GOVT', the tallest 8.2cm high (Qty) Footnotes: Provenance With Joyce Brandt, 1981 ('Delescot' pot) Graham Slater Collection A number of these ointment pots would have been recovered from the Thames or nearby. Some bear old labels recording where they were found, amongst them, Vauxhall and Fleet Street. Excavations have shown that similar white ointment pots were staple products from every London delftware manufactory, and indeed, one unglazed miniature pot in this lot is clearly a kiln waster. A similar pot inscribed 'Delescot' was sold by Christie's on 30 March 2006, lot 43 (part). Delescot was a prominent apothecary with premises at Duke Street in Pall Mall. In 1749, he patented his 'Conserve of Myrtle Opiate'. See Agnes Lothian Short, 'Apothecaries in the Haymarket and their unguent pots' ECC Vol.10, Pt.1 (1976), p.70. The miniature ovoid pot, inscribed 'B GOVT' was found in the Thames, possibly refers to a cure for gout. Graham Slater illustrates it in his paper 'Twice through Fire, once Water', see ECC Trans, Vol.17, Pt.3 (2001), p.328. He suggests that the curious shape and small size might indicate that it was part of a travelling medicine chest, intended as an individual dose to relieve the unfortunate patient. However, in part II of the Sotheby's sale of the Professor F H Garner Collection, 2 March 1965, lot 64 was a group of ten small ointment pots, one of which was inscribed in blue 'GOV'. The pot with a stencilled label 'No.3, Gervais R. St. Martin, Pres la R.aux Ours., a Paris' was likely made at Mortlake or perhaps Glasshouse Street, Lambeth, where the last of English delftware is known to have been produced, until the closure of the factory in 1846. London agents would have ordered local manufacturers to make dispensing pots so that they could decant and sell the medicines and perfumes they had imported in bulk from the Continent. See Jonathan Horne's exhibition catalogue, Part XX, fig.592. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing