A water jug is a vessel with a handle and pouring lip used for serving or carrying water, made in a wide range of materials including earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, glass, pewter, silver and copper. In antiques it covers both table jugs for serving water at meals and larger bedroom jugs used with washbowls before the arrival of plumbed bathrooms.
The Victorian toilet set, comprising a large ewer and basin with matching soap dishes and chamber pots, was produced in vast quantities by Staffordshire potteries in transfer-printed earthenware and ironstone. Glass water jugs were often cut, engraved or etched and sometimes sold with matching tumblers, while Arts and Crafts metalworkers and art potteries produced more individual designs. Country and farmhouse jugs in salt-glazed stoneware and slipware also survive in large numbers. Collectors consider the maker, pattern, quality of decoration and condition, paying attention to chips around the spout and rim, cracks, crazing and restored handles. Water jugs are now widely used as decorative objects in their own right, displayed on dressers, used as vases for garden flowers or grouped together on a kitchen shelf.
