Photograph: Small cream-coloured jar with green and blue glaze and a design of leaves, lines and letters scratched through the cream surface, revealing the red clay underneath.
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Albarello

Date: About 1500-1536

This drug jar or alabarello, is from Beauvais in central France. It has double slip sgraffito decoration, which is achieved by scratching through the top coat of white slip (liquid clay coloured with metallic oxides) to expose the red slip underneath. The vessel is further embellished with green slip, foliate motifs and the inscription: 'VA T'EN QUITTE' (possibly meaning 'get out of here'): an apt warning on a container designed to hold hazardous and/or precious ingredients. The jar would have been sealed with a cap made from parchment or pig's bladder.

Accession number: A4925

Place made: Beauvais, France

Place of collection: Lothbury, City of London

Material: ceramic; earthenware

Measurements: H 165 mm; DM 90 mm

Gallery location: Case 18.1

Related material

Subjects:

France & Low Countries
Health

Objects:

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