Categories
Museum Object

35. Drug Pot

Gallery:

Europe 1400-1800

Room / Case / #

46 / 10

Medicines from afar

As well as being fashionable the Chinese designs on this drug pot would allude to the exotic, to contents that were not available to the forager – but only from the pharmacy. There is no money to be made from home cures.

This item: London drug pot with Chinese figures. Drug-jar; tin-glazed earthenware painted in blue, orange, yellow and green with coat of arms of the Apothecaries’ Company; unicorn supporters. Do look at the next picture which shows the other side, a complete contrast. Chinese figures and landscape in blue and manganese on reverse; The Latin Inscription reads Throughout the world they speak of me as a bringer of help. Comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses relating to a passage where Apollo killed a python.  See More on Medicine for more on Snake Oil. This pot produced in 1690 and is 23 cms tall.