Chafing dish

Description

A chafing dish made of blackware, with a purple glaze. The underside of the base shows no trace of having been wired from a turntable which suggests that the pedestal was thrown as an open cylinder and the base luted on separately. The pedestal rising from the base to the bowl of the chafing dish contains four opposing vents, roughly rectangular in shape, c. 20-25 mm in length. The vents end below the level of the junction of the lower end of the handles and the pedestal. There are two opposed (incomplete) handles roughly ovoid in section. A series of irregularly spaced circular holes c 5 mm in diameter are cut into the bowl. Eight complete or partial holes are visible. In the interior of the base of the bowl there are are five circular impressions which have not perforated the thickness of the base as they should have done to make the vessel fully functional and to allow the circulation of air up through the pedestal vents into the bowl. Found in the Garden of Shakespeare's Birthplace.