Large wine mug (“canceu”)
The artefact presented to you this week is a large wine mug worked in a guild workshop in the Turda ceramic center.
The piece has a narrow, low base, a pyriform body with a splay neck, a round and flare lip. The handle is simple, curved, with insertion points at the neck and central part of the body. The interior is engobed and glazed. The decoration is organized on a single central register. The register contains, on the central part, an avimorphic motif (a bird) sitting on a garland of leaves with a round flower (representative of the Turda ceramic center). On the left side of the central motif, behind the avimorphic motif, there is also a garland of leaves with a round flower. The register is delimited both in the upper and in the lower part by two parallel lines. The dating – “1871” - appears on the upper part of the recipient. The handle of the recipient is decorated with small parallel lines, in the shape of a triangle. The motifs are made with cobalt blue (cobalt oxide difficult to procure and used here, in pottery, since 1720), and yellow on a white background. The piece was made of clay at the potter’s wheel, being engobed, decorated with horn and brush, burnt by oxidizing combustion and glazed with plumber enamel.
The mug is registered with inv. no. 850 and it entered the museum’s collection in 1923.
Dimensions: H: 22,3 cm, DB: 5,5 cm, DG: 8,4 cm.
Text: Andrei Filip – MET museographer
Photo: George Ciupag – MET photo-video museographer