English Delftware Drug Jar: Unlabelled with geometric design, around 1570-1700

Description

We know very little about the containers that apothecaries used to store their medicines before the middle of the 1600s. However, it seems likely that they were using simple jars such as these, certainly after the arrival of tin-glazed pottery in England in the 1570s.
The earliest English Delftware drugs jars were manufactured without contents labels for around 100 years. Although the jars are not labelled, some people think that the geometric decoration on the larger jars acted as a sign to the apothecary of what was stored in the jar.
This jar has blue decoration on the waist, and blue horizontal bands around the neck and foot.

Fact

These jars were probably used mainly for holding ointments, confections and pill masses. They usually had a rim that turned outwards so that a piece of parchment or chamois leather could be tied over the top.