17TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY TONALA, ON LATE 17TH-CENTURY ENGLISH EBONISED STANDS

During the 17th and 18th centuries exotic earthenware water jars or búcaros de Indias, produced in Mexico, became popular amongst European collectors both for their exotic appearance and because they were believed to give water a pleasing flavour. In Diego Velazquez' masterpiece Las Meninas (Museo del Prado, Madrid) a small 'bucaros' of water can be seen being offered to the infanta Margarita. It was also thought that the unglazed ceramic from which they were made would promote a paler complexion, indeed so much so that it became fashionable in Spain and Italy for ladies to consume fragments of of such pottery to improve their 'broken' colour.
These enigmatic monumental ovoid jars can be confidently identified as the 'two large cherry jarrs, brown & gold: on black carved frams' [sic.] listed in The Great Hall in the circa 1750 Inventory of The Contents of Ombersley Court. Although the entry for the jars has been corrected, it appears to be a contemporary correction in the same hand, rather than one of the later updates to the document, most of which date to 1775. Although the entry does not give further provenance it is likely that they may have entered the collection as part of the group of important works-of-art inherited by Laetitia, Lady Sandys (née Tipping, 1699-1779) which originally belonged to her great uncle, Admiral Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford (1653-1727) of Chippenham Hall, Cambridgeshire.