Medallion jug

Cologne stoneware jug with much of the body and narrow neck missing. The dark grey stoneware has a patchy brown surface under a speckled salt-glaze. There is applied decoration of vine-leaves around a stem around the waist and on either side a pendant of acanthus leaves. On the upper body are applied large roundel medallions containing classical female portraits in high relief, and on the lower body are smaller roundels containing male busts in contemporary head-dress, one crowned. Probably the work of the Maximinenstrasse workshop. Highly decorated relief-moulded stonewares from Cologne began to appear in London by about 1510. These were expensive consumer products designed to appeal to the luxury end of the market.