POST MEDIEVAL TOY

1500

Copper alloy miniature cauldron, cast in a triplicate form. Copper alloy cauldron toys have been dated to the late16th-17th century and are regularly found inas a single component. This find has been cast so that three cauldrons are positioned together each with a single handle lug. Each cauldron would also have had a single leg although only one such leg survives. The reason for creating a triplicate example is unclear; vessels known as ‘fuddling’ vessels have been recorded as full size ceramics and were produced from the 17th century in the ‘country pottery’ tradition as novelty or joke pieces – created to befuddle. These ‘fuddling cups’ were vessels with three or more small cups with interlinked handles and joined together through a small hole in the walls. The idea was to drink from one without spilling the contents of the others. Although cooking vessels have no ‘fuddling’ parallel, it seems that this miniature is some sort of novelty piece. The find weighs 36.03g and measures 33.4mm in diameter and 19.22mm in thickness. The object would have required a complicated mould and the walling at several points on the constituent vessels have corroded away and appear to have been cast too thinly; a result of the complex mould needed for a triple, failing to give the correct flow of metal throughout. The metal seems to have quite a high lead content.