English Delftware Drug Jar: Pipe-Smoking Man design, around 1645-1655

The first English drug jars decorated with a contents label appeared in the mid-1600s.
One of the earliest designs is the ‘pipe-smoking man’. The label takes the form of a straight cartouche, usually edged with scrolls. Below the middle of the label is a satyr’s head and at either end a larger grotesque head seen in profile, with something protruding from the mouth. As tobacco had been introduced to Europe towards the end of the 1500s, this is believed to be a tobacco pipe.
Another theory is that the heads were introduced by a Dutch immigrant potter influenced by ‘Gapers’. These were large wooden heads, often with a protruding tongue, decorating the outside of Dutch apothecary shops from the 1500s onwards.

The inscription ‘C:MELISSAE:’ on this dry drug jar reveals it was for storing Conserva Melissae, Conserve of Balm (Melissa officinalis).
With its design in blue, yellow and orange, this is a very early example of a polychrome drug jar. The jar was manufactured in London around 1645-1655.

J.Quincy A Compleat English Dispensatory 1718 pp.162-3

It flowers in July. This Herb is very well known in our Gardens. It is of a fine Cordial Flavour; but it is so weak, that in most medicinal Forms it is lost, and in most medicinal Forms it is lost, and ‘tis hard even to dry it with its Natural Scent…It is a good Cordial, and makes an agreeable Ingredient in many Alexipharmick Waters. Any other Forms it is not fit for.