Heading : Substantial Derby Porcelain Porter Mug
Date : 1782 - 1825 (use of mark as below) c1820 based on the form
Period : George III - George IV
Marks : Crown, crossed batons, dots and cursive D in iron red - along with painter's mark of '2
Origin : Derby, England
Colour : Gilt sprays and borders around a polychrome image of a flower basket on a plinth; gilt inner rim
Condition : minimal gilt loss; 4mm chip to the inside of the foot rim. Minor loss of enamels.
Restoration : none
Dimensions : 11.5 cm in height x 12.0 cm diameter
Weight : 529 grams

Note : has the impressive and very accurately-gauged capacity of one and a half pints; the phrase "porter mug" first appears in Peter Pindar's The Convention Bill - An Ode, published in 1795, when the writer claims that "sedition lays within a porter mug" whilst he is railing against "the insufferable licentiousness of the present age". It was applied specifically to porcelain wares in Volume 2 of the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue for the 1851 Great Exhibition, with regard to an example produced by Charles Meigh & Sons of Hanley, Staffordshire.