Chippy Antique Victorian English Advertising Pot - Purple Harris Devonshire Clotted Cream

This delightful Victorian white ironstone clotted cream pot, advertising Harris’s Devonshire Clotted Cream, is a rare find. Recently dug from a Victorian dumping ground, it is in a chippy and weathered condition.

These antique advertising pots with their coloured transfer prints are amongst my favourite. This example is a very scarce example, and features some wonderful details.

Dating from the late 1800s, these pots were used to sell fresh clotted cream. The style of these advertising pots epitomises the Victorian era, with a lavish use of different, individually beautiful, fonts for each line of writing. The back also features a stunning logo, showing how the cream was transported across the country daily via the rail network.

The passage on the back, extolling the virtues of clotted cream, is equally delightful:

“This Valuable Product highly esteemed for its delicacy with Fruits, Pastry, Jams, Puddings, Coffee, Salads, Fish, Vegetables & C., gives richness of flavour unapproachable, also greatly used for whisking, by dissolving in milk. This nourishing article, has been most success fully employed in cases of debility, and consumption, for which it is highly commended by the Faculty.”

This pot has suffered some damage in its time. There is crazing and staining all over. Most notably, though, there is a chip and some significant hairline cracks to the top half of the pot. Therefore, this piece is only suitable for display. But it would make a remarkable display item, as the purple transfer print is still very clear.

Height, 12cm
Width, 6.5cm