This jug’s inscription states:

‘Now I am come for to supply your workmen when in harvist dry when they do labour hard and sweat good drink is better far than meat’.

Beer was drunk as quick liquid energy during bouts of hard labour, especially during harvest-time. This jug was likely a wedding present, given the facing male and female heads with a love heart in between. The rotund shape, flowers in bloom, and harvest reference would have been interpreted as symbols of fertility and abundance, appropriate for marriage and desired offspring.

North Devon, England, 1724

Lead-glazed earthenware with slip, with incised decoration

Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest (GL.C.59-1928)