Antique Claret Jugs between £0 and £0
A claret jug is a handled glass jug, usually with a stopper or hinged cover and a metal neck and handle, made for pouring red wine at the Victorian and Edwardian table.
What They Are
The form came out of the nineteenth century as a way of decanting and serving red wine: a glass body with a handle, and a cover hinged or removable so the wine could be poured without lifting a stopper out. It settled into the standard run of Victorian and Edwardian dining glass and silver.
The body is nearly always glass rather than metal. "Glass" appears in 97 of 148 titles on Sellingantiques, "Victorian" in 54, and cutting or engraving in a large share of the rest. The jug you are most likely to meet is clear glass, cut or engraved, with a metal collar, lid and handle. Mounts are more often plated than solid silver, with 18 titles naming silver plate against a handful naming hallmarked silver.
Around that core sit four smaller groups. Plain glass jugs and ewers with no metal named in the title make up about a quarter. Coloured and decorated glass turns up steadily, cranberry the commonest, with amber, ruby, Bristol blue, cased and latticinio work alongside it. Pewter-mounted Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts jugs form a small persistent seam. Pairs and sets, including jugs with matching goblets or a fitted case, account for 12 titles.
The dated field runs 1800 to 1950, and it bunches hard around 1900: the 1900s and the 1880s are the two peaks, with the 1890s close behind. A third of the period entries give only a reign or a century, so "Victorian" in a title tells you little about the decade. Georgian and Regency examples are thin on the ground, and the later end thins out too.
Where The Range Sits
Metal is the first divider. Plated mounts are the norm, and jugs whose mounts are hallmarked silver sit in the upper half of the range. The single highest-priced piece in the archive is a hallmarked silver-mounted novelty in the form of a monkey, which appears once and has no companion.
Glass does the rest of the work. Plain engraved Victorian bodies sit at the bottom; deep cutting, intaglio, cased glass and green overlay climb from there. Colour lifts a jug above plain clear, with ruby and overlay pieces reaching well up. Named design idiom counts too, and the pewter-mounted Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts jugs cluster above the middle.
Completeness is the other lever. Singles are the default, and anything that survives as a group sits markedly higher: a pair, a jug with matching goblets, one with its own stand, a three-bottle plated frame, a pair still in its original fitted case.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for claret jugs between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
Colour turns up often on Sellingantiques: cranberry, ruby, amber, Bristol Blue and green overlay claret jugs have all been listed.
The Antique Claret Jugs between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Claret jug
- Handled glass jug with a cover, made for serving red wine at table.
- Mount
- The metal collar, neck, lid and handle fitted to the glass body.
- Silver plated
- Base metal with a silver surface, named in 18 titles and more common here than solid silver.
- Cut glass
- Decoration ground into the blank with a wheel, in 31 titles; engraved means shallower wheel or point work, often fruiting vine.
- Ewer
- A jug form, used interchangeably with claret jug in 10 titles and mostly on current stock.
- Latticinio
- White glass threads worked into the body, seen on Venetian-style pieces; intaglio is deep cutting hollowed below the surface.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are claret jugs silver or silver plated?
Plated is the norm. Eighteen titles name silver plate and another nineteen simply say plated, against a handful naming solid silver.
Where the mount is hallmarked silver, the jug tends to sit in the upper half of the range. Many listings name no metal at all and describe the glass alone.
What period do most of them date from?
The dated field runs 1800 to 1950, and it concentrates on the four decades either side of 1900. The 1900s and the 1880s are the two peaks, with the 1890s just behind.
Earlier material is thin. Only a couple of Georgian or Regency entries appear, and the later end tails off to a single 1950 Venetian set.
Do coloured glass claret jugs turn up?
More often than you might expect. Cranberry is the commonest, and amber, ruby, Bristol blue, cased glass and green overlay all appear across the archive.
Enamel-painted and latticinio bodies show up too. Coloured and decorated glass makes up perhaps one jug in eight.
Why does a listing just say Victorian?
Because a third of the period entries on Sellingantiques give a reign or a century rather than a year. Twenty-five say only Victorian and eight only 19th Century.
That covers a long stretch, so the word on its own doesn't place a jug in a decade.
How often do claret jugs come up for sale?
Around fifteen a year. Forty-two dealers have listed them, which makes it a category plenty of dealers touch and none builds a business on.
The archive stands at 148 listings in total.
What are pewter-mounted examples?
Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts jugs where the collar, cover and handle are pewter rather than silver or plate, sometimes over green glass, sometimes figural.
They are a small seam but a persistent one, and they generally sit in the upper part of the range.