16 - Revolutionary Histories in Small Things

Summary

Between the years 1793 and 1796, a proliferation of small, creamware ale mugs and jugs, transfer-printed in enamel, were made by regional English ceramic factories. These relatively affordable wares depicted scaled-down images of the most infamous scenes of the French Revolution. Used in taverns and in the home, these printed ceramics formed part of what Jon Mee has called the “conversable world”; they raise significant questions about the complex nature of counter- and prorevolutionary sentiment in England. Encoded with a multiplicity of meanings, they had the capacity to act as historical and political agents. This chapter situates these pots within wider conversations around the sociocultural aesthetics of ceramics, and examines the processes involved in, and the material and historical consequences of, scaling down such monumental events onto handheld objects.