Period: Late Regency
Maker: Josiah Spode
This is the only example we have encountered of a Spode Hydra jug in the ‘Banana Tree’ pattern. It was specially commissioned in the Late Regency period by a couple whose initials are inscribed in cursive gilt.
The Hydra was a multi-headed serpent slain by Hercules in Greek and Roman mythology. Hydra-shape jugs have a serpentine handle and monstrous head where it joins the body at the top. The swelling body is eight-sided with a narrow neck and widening mouth.
This Spode specimen is particularly fine. The Hydra head is painted in gold. The outer surface of the handle is knotted and finely ribbed to resemble serpent scales.
The rest of the decoration is Spode’s complex and striking ‘Banana Tree’ 2214 pattern. A popular Spode design, it is inspired by a Chinese or Japanese scholar’s garden. A stylised banana tree curves round the left side. The banana tree appealed to Chinese and Japanese poets for the melancholy sound of raindrops splashing off its large leaves. This was not the same banana tree that supplies the fruit we buy in vast quantities but musa banjoo or the Japanese banana tree (believed to have originated in China’s Sichuan Province). Japan’s most celebrated poet, Basho, is named after this banana tree or basho (芭蕉)* The eight-petal flower in the centre is the water lotus, a Buddhist symbol of purity as it emerges unstained from roots in the muddy waters of attachment and desire.
The names of the couple who presumably ordered the jug from Spode, ‘G and MA Hirst,’ are inscribed in cursive gilt amid the lotus roots.
The palette is the standard ‘English Imari’ trio of cobalt blue, iron red and gold, and some design elements, such as the stylised banana tree and lotus flower, are derived from imported Chinese and Japanese porcelain. However, their highly imaginative application is a tribute to Regency artistry and originality.
On the bottom, ‘Spode’ is painted in gold, together with the pattern number 2214. Leonard Whiter notes in his book on Spode that such gold marks are unusual, as unnecessary use of gold was ‘discouraged for reasons of expense.’ There is also an impressed ‘24.’
Condition Pristine apart from some minor gilt rubbing, mainly near the bottom.
Height: 12.4 cm; Width, spout across handle: 11.7 cm
Net weight: 352 g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
Origin: Stoke-on-Trent, England
*See my blog, Basho and the banana tree; Kan’ei-ji’s bell and revolution
For background on the Spode factory, see Spode and Copeland in Makers & Artists
