"A Toast to the Chase: English Ceramic Stirrup
Cups"
Janine Skerry
Curator of Ceramics and Glass, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation
English pottery stirrup cups: Examples of the hunter
and the hunted
The November meeting of the San Francisco Ceramic Circle will
be held on Wednesday 6th November in the Florence Gould Theater
at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, San Francisco.
Entrance is from the West terrace from 7.30pm. The lecture will
start at 8.00pm.
About the Lecture: Although popular among many collectors
today, little is known about English ceramic stirrup cups and
they rarely appear in images or literature of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. Fashioned in the shape of the heads
of foxes, hounds and hares, these curious drinking vessels cannot
be put down unless drained of their contents. This lecture will
explore the ancient origins of this form, its evolution and history,
and its association with hunting on horseback.. Pottery, porcelain,
and silverexamples drawn primarily from the Colonial Williamsburg
collections will be featured.
About the lecturer: Janine E. Skerry has served as Curator
of Ceramics and Glass for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
in Williamsburg, Virginia since 1993. Prior to joining Colonial
Williamburg she was employed at Historic Deerfield, the Yale University
Art Gallery, the Peabody Museum in Salem , and the Essex Institute.
She has lectured widely, has written numerous articles on silver
and ceramics in America, and has recently prepared the exhibition
entitled "Identifying Ceramics: The Who, What and Ware"
now on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum at Colonial
Williamsburg. Ms. Skerry is presently working on a book on stoneware
in early America.
Next meeting: Sunday 23rd February 2003. Letitia Roberts,
Independent Ceramic Scholar and Specialist "Parlor Tricks:
Girls, Gallants, Garnitures and Gewgaws"
