Pot of the Week: A Barnstaple ware harvest jug from the Museum of English Rural Life

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Pot of the week: A delightful harvest jug from the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading

                                        Harvest is come all

                                       Busy now in making

                                       of the Barley mow if

                                       you the Barley mow

                                     neglect of Good ale you

                                        can not then expect.

                                            August 1838

                                             John Prouse

                                                Hartland.

And so the circle is made complete. Barley is harvested, barley is malted and made into beer, and that beer is then drunk when harvesting barley. And historically, alcohol and harvest have often gone hand in hand. In fact, until hygiene laws intervened, many farmers paid their labourers in home-brewed beer as well as cash.

Until the invention of harvesting machines, adults and children had to work long days to get the harvest and haymaking finished while the weather was good.

Some accounts describe a happy atmosphere, with cider, chatting and flirting at mealtimes in the fields. Others talk of aching backs and sunburnt necks for low wages and in poor conditions.

This particular harvest jug combines the two accounts. The verse inscribed on one side reflects the casual, ale-drinking image of the harvest, while the artist’s representation of the sun, with crooked grin and blazing swirls, must surely have come from first-hand experience of long days toiling under its glare.

An example of Barnstaple ware, our brown and cream jug was made in North Devon in 1838. Made from Red Earthenware with a yellow slip, it has sgraffito decoration, meaning that its designs were scratched in. As well as the verse and sun, we are also treated to a cockerel (we think) in a pale cream, surrounded by flowers on clumsy stems.

Considering the amount of information we have on the potter, John Prouse, he may as well be anonymous. His pot, however, was recently canonised by the Tate when selected for their exhibition British Folk Art, which celebrated the skill, traditions and styles of the art of ordinary people and craftspeople.

This jug is held by the Museum of English Rural Life.

Adam Kozary is the Project Officer for the Our Country Lives project at MERL.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/ceramics-and-craft/art540929-pot-of-the-week-a-barnstaple-ware-harvest-jug-from-merl