A Rare Liverpool Transfer-Printed Creamware 'John Adams' Pitcher

English, Circa 1798

one side with portrait of John Adams as president, flanked by allegories of Justice and Plenty, with puto bearing a Phrygian cap; the opposite with monogram EAS encircled by linked chain of sixteen states.
with Success to America and spread-winged eagle transfers beneath the spout.
Height 11 inches.

Provenance:

Purportedly presented as a gift to Betsey Scott (1779-1830) on the occasion of her marriage to John William Hancock (1774-1859), nephew of the eponymous signatory of the Declaration of Independence, November 19, 1799;

by descent within the family, thence acquired by an anonymous member of the Ceramics Study Club, Boston, Massachusetts;

purchased by R. Robert Leaviss, Fall River, Massachusetts;

Stephen A. Adams, Eleazer Arnold House, Great Road, Lincoln, Rhode Island, 1979;

later acquired by the present owner.

Literature:

Adams transfer inventoried as A.4 and illustrated p. 61 in David and Linda Arman's Anglo-American Ceramics, Part I: Transfer Printer Creamware and Pearlware for the American Market, 1760-1860, Oakland Press: Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 1998.