Puzzle jug

Cheers!

Suppose you are having a party. The guests have been invited, the streamers are hanging, drinks and snacks are temptingly displayed on the table. There is good music, in short, nothing seems to stand in the way of a pleasant evening. But even if all the conditions are met, it can still happen that a moment of boredom arises. What do you do when you notice that your party is in danger of collapsing? Time for a drinking game! Traditionally, this is a tried and tested method to increase the party joy.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, special drinking vessels made of glass, silver or ceramics existed for these kinds of occasions, often referred to as ‘snakerijen’. A well-known example is the boot glass, which still causes hilarity at many parties today. This glass is shaped like a high boot. The idea is to drink the glass empty as quickly as possible with the toe of the boot pointing upwards, without spilling anything. This goes well until the inevitable air bubble forms in the heel of the boot and the beer flows over the drinker’s face.

Another example is the mill cup, usually made entirely of silver. This cup consists of a chalice on one side and a mill with sails on the other side. As soon as the cup is filled, you blow the mill sails into motion. Before they stop, the glass must be empty. If that does not work, a new round follows.

Puzzle jug, approx. 1760, De Grieksche A, Delft, earthenware, h. 20,4 cm, on loan from Ottema-Kingma Stichting.

Well-known ceramic snakerijen are the puzzle jugs, of which there are a few examples in the Princessehof. They are modelled after a regular pouring jug, with a round belly, a sturdy neck and an ear-shaped handle. But if you look more closely, you will see that it is impossible to pour from these jugs. The neck is completely made open, so that the contents do not end up in the glass when pouring, but gush over the clothes. Great fun for the bystanders!

These jugs are called puzzle jugs because the point is to discover how to get the drink out of the jug without spilling it. The solution to the riddle is that the handle and the upper rim of the puzzle jug are hollow and connected to each other. This hollow forms a straw, as it were. If you suck on one of the spouts on the rim and keep the other spouts closed with your fingers, you can slurp the drink down. In the past, these jugs were therefore also known as ‘suijgkannen’, or sucking jugs, an ambiguous term with a certain erotic charge. The puzzle jugs were therefore used primarily at weddings. It is quite possible that our Delft jug was once a wedding gift.

Most puzzle jugs are made of earthenware, but we also know those made of porcelain. They were made to order in China during the Kangxi period (1662 - 1722). The Chinese potters copied the Western examples in detail, but whether they knew the exact use and meaning of the puzzle jugs is questionable. Which does not mean that the Chinese did not know drinking games!

Puzzle jug

This puzzle jug was made at De Grieksche A, one of the most important pottery factories in Delft at the time. The company existed for more than 150 years. During the period under the leadership of Adriaan Kocx (1686 - 1701), the factory supplied spectacular flower holders and other ornamental vases to King-Stadtholder William III and Queen Mary II. The puzzle jug, marked D 12 on the bottom, dates from almost a century later, from the period when Jan Teunis Dextra was at the helm (1757 - 1765). The chinoiserie scene was painted after a print by the German-Dutch engraver Pieter Schenk de Jongere (1693 - 1775).

Karin Gaillard, curator European Ceramics at Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics.