Punch Pot

Description

The decoration on this punch pot was heavily influenced by Japanese porcelains. The same underglaze cobalt blue was combined with orange and gold, the palette of Japanese Imari wares. Unlike the plate, however, this piece is not a direct copy of Japanese wares. A purely Western form, this unusually large punch pot was simply modeled. Visual impact was achieved by surface decoration rather than by modeling, a trend in Worcester products after 1765 which continued into the 1770s. As is typical of this middle era of Worcester’s first period, the decoration overwhelms the paste, which figures in the color scheme of the pattern.