A very rare John Dwight (Fulham) silver-mounted white stoneware mug or gorge, circa 1685

Footnotes

Provenance
With Jonathan Horne
Susi and Ian Sutherland Collection

In 1672, John Dwight applied to King Charles II for a patent to produce stoneware and a transparent earthenware 'commonly knowne by the names of Porcelane or China & Persian ware', see Jonathan Horne, John Dwight (1992). He made several attempts to produce porcelain and in a second patent application in 1684 names the series of 'fine white' wares to which this mug belongs.

Despite its portly appearance, this mug (or gorge) is pleasingly light to hold. This is a key feature of Chinese porcelain, as is its strength which enables very fine potting. Dwight achieved this too, and typically 'fine white' wares are approximately just 2mm in thickness, some examples also betray a slight transparency when held to the light. It is hardly surprising then that upon finding Dwight's notebooks, Lady Charlotte Schreiber was prompted to question whether porcelain was first made in Europe at Dresden or perhaps at Fulham, see Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, Lady Charlotte Schreiber: Extraordinary Art Collector (2025), p.88.

Lady Charlotte purchased two gorges for her collection, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. nos.414:853-1885 and 414:853/A-1885). The silver mounts of her examples are marked 'SS' and '1682'. The first mention of Dwight's 'fine white' wares is recorded in 1681, three years prior to the patent, see Chris Green, John Dwight's Fulham Pottery Excavations 1971-79 (1999), p.125. The 'gorge' shape, popularised by German stoneware imports as well as expensive silver versions, was discontinued at Fulham before the turn of the century. His patent ran out in 1698 coinciding with the Ale Measures Act of the same year, which standardised drinking vessels ensuring they held the same measures.

Between 1971 and 1979 extensive excavations were carried out at the Fulham pottery site, the findings discussed by Chris Green (1999), include a list of thirteen known examples, the majority of which are in museum collections, see p.280. From the list, 'PC18' was sold by Sotheby's 20 January 2006, lot 25, as part of the Harriet Goldweitz Collection. Lot 24, in the same sale was an indenture issued to Dwight by William Penn in 1685 for the purchase of 500 acres of land in Pennsylvania. Harwood A Johnson posited that perhaps Dwight had hopes to cultivate the land as a new source of clay, see 'John Dwight of Fulham's Purchase of Land in Pennsylvania', Ars Ceramica, 10 (1993), pp.21-25. More recently, an example from the Vogel collection was sold by Sotheby's New York on 19 January 2019, lot 609.