Medical Ceramics in the Wellcome Institute. Volume I: English and Dutch

Medical Ceramics in the Wellcome Institute. Volume I: English and Dutch, by J. K. CRELLIN, London, Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1969, pp. 304, illus., £6 6s. Od. Serious students of the history of medicine, chemistry and pharmacy have already cause to thank Dr. F. N. L. Poynter, Director of the Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, for the publication of three Catalogues of the principal contents of the Wellcome Library. Now we have the first of a projected series of Catalogues of the contents of the Museum, built up with lavish prudence by Sir Henry Wellcome and added to by successive Directors. This is not a Catalogue for scanning: the careful descriptions of the 3,000 or so objects, all of medical and pharmaceutical interest, written by John K. Crellin of the Wellcome Institute demand close study. The numerous illustrations, almost 500 figures in all, are splendid examples of what skilful photography can do to add point to the descriptions of the objects themselves. The printers too have played their part admirably in the presentation of a book that is a pleasure to handle. Primarily this is a catalogue of ceramic objects: not a treatise on the development of styles of decoration of shapes though much of what the author has given us by way of comparative examples taken from wide reading and consultation with art historians may well prove to be the accepted source book par excellence of future writers dealing with the classes of ceramics described and of forms of decoration. The English and Dutch drug jars will have first claim upon the reader, if only because of the variety and similarity of design and the present-day zest for collecting. The author is not afraid to pose problems where his own study cannot settle queries. One example is his question whether the 'pipe-smoker' finials to the labels on the first English jars were really intended to be that or not. His observation might have been strengthened had he seen the fragments of early sixteenth-century plates in Malaga Museum where the finials of the labels denoting the ships' names are similar to those on the English drug jars. So many objects are mentioned that not in every case can the details be complete. What adds to our interest are the special figures of shapes of English jars, fig. 1, the band decorations on storage jars, fig. 2, the tassel designs on Dutch jars, fig. 3, and the convenient summary of Dutch makers' marks, p. 50. This reviewer would certainly echo the author's thought that not enough has yet been done or if done, not published, on the interchange of designs between the makers and decorators of English and Dutch jars. Surprisingly there appears to be no Spanish influence in the Netherlands pharmaceutical pottery, either in shape or decoration, although Spain held the Netherlands for long years. All the external influence seems to have come from North Germany or Italy. Attention is called to the many 'Dutch' jars which may well have been made, as Wittop Koning and others have suggested, in what is now Belgium, e.g. Antwerp jars. Are those jars with floreated 'I.H.S.' of monastic or convent origin (fig. 158)? Is the jar labelled 'SAECHAR: RUB:' so spelt because of the German flattening of the vowel 'A'? Amidst so much valuable material it would be surprising if a few minor items did not raise questions. e.g. Is not 'paraph' normally so spelt and not as printed (page 19). Are the 'wings' at the base of the basket of