A LONDON DELFT WHITE OVAL FECUNDITY DISH

The allegory of Fecundity was almost certainly taken from a metal original used by Palissy and his successors in France. The English tin-glazed examples range in date from 1633 to 1697. The only two relevant fragments of this form were found on a Rotherhithe site. However an example at Colonial Williamsburg, dated 1661, has the initials of Richard Newman and his wife Elizabeth, who was manager at Pickleherring, Southwark. For a discussion of this type see Michael Archer, Delftware the the British Isles, a Catalogue of the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1997), pp. 109-112, nos. A. 61 and A. 62.