Stoneware bowl | 1666

1651:913:1

Donor: Eliza Lincoln

This bowl was originally a wedding gift to Hannah Battle on January 1, 1667. As decades passed, it became an heirloom, passed on through generations, and given to three more New England women on their wedding days: Hannah Lincoln in 1688, Patricia Lincoln in 1794, and Eliza Lincoln in 1851.

The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab examined the bowl and opined that this piece might be “the lower half of a Nottingham stoneware-loving cup. The top edge of the piece appears to be rough in places, suggesting that the piece was broken at some point and then probably evened off to make a footed bowl”.

Nottinghamware was salt-glazed brown stoneware made in Nottingham, England, from the late 1600s until the early 1800s. “Salt glazing” is just what it sounds like during kiln firing; salt is introduced into the kiln, and it reacts with the clay to create a shiny, pitted glaze that makes brown stoneware look a bit like bronze. Nottinghamware was quite fine stoneware. This bowl is evenly thin, not thick and clunky, like some utilitarian pieces.

We'll never know how or when this loving cup came to be broken or who decided to give it a second life as a bowl. But we like to imagine Hannah Battle and her new husband, more than 350 years ago, sharing their first drink as a married couple from the cup.