Beer jug

• English stoneware
• around 1860
• height: 22.5 cm

One side of this well-preserved jug from a family of Rügen sailors is emblazoned with the inscription SAILORS' FAREWELL and the sentimental lines:

"'Tis sweet, how sweet it is to feel
when two hearts as one grow nigh.
But into this sweetness there comes n'ertheless
the sadness of saying goodbye."

A similarly mawkish couplet graces the other side of the jug.

The English beer jug – called a 'Drickelpott' in Low German – is a popular keepsake and wedding gift along the Baltic Sea coast of Germany. The jug with pink lustre is decorated with colourful motifs, edging and verses from English ditties. British manufacturers use offprinting to add lettering to the curvaceous contours of drinking implements.

Mariners have a particular penchant for sections with pink lustre, which at the time are printed in England with popular 'seafarer ballads'.