Antique Blue and White Jugs between £0 and £0
A jug decorated in blue on a white ground, made for pouring milk, cream, water, ale or washstand water, in sizes from a few inches to a gallon.
What Are They?
Blue-and-white came to Europe as an imitation of imported Chinese porcelain, first on tin-glazed delftware, then on English porcelain, and from the later 18th century on earthenware printed under the glaze. Jugs took the decoration in every size the household needed.
The form you'll meet most often on Sellingantiques is a single jug, transfer-printed or hand-painted, sorted by its pattern. "Pattern" is the commonest word in these titles, one in five of them: Fisherman, Dragon, Pine Cone, Claremont, Trophies Marble, Italian Marble, Drape, Harlech, Gwent. Transfer-printed pottery, including Staffordshire and ironstone, is the largest single group.
Behind that sit four smaller threads. Worcester and other 18th-century English porcelain, named in nine titles, brings sparrow-beak cream jugs and cabbage-leaf mask jugs. Tin-glazed delftware, English and Dutch, accounts for around a tenth. Washstand pieces recur: jug and basin, jug and bowl sets, footbath jugs. And graduated sets appear five times, in threes and a four.
Dates need reading twice. The dated field runs 1800 to 1920 and only eleven listings carry a clean year, yet titles reach back to a Dutch Delft pitcher of about 1690 and a Worcester cream jug of about 1758. Take "19th Century" or "Georgian" as a band, not a year.
Where The Range Splits
Size does most of the work. The top of the range is held by big things: an exceptionally large Regency transferware jug described as a shop window display piece, a gallon-capacity Georgian pottery jug, a footbath jug and a footbath-and-jug pairing. Small sparrow-beak cream and milk jugs sit at the bottom.
After scale comes the pattern and what it shows. Dealers flag a Dragon pattern, a rare variant, an early peony print. Documentary and topographical subjects carry weight too: Nelson and mariners, Boston State House, City Hall New York, Loch Creran with Barcaldine Castle, and a marriage jug with 1828 painted on it.
Completeness lifts a listing above a single jug of the same type. Graduated runs of three and four, matched pairs of delftware, and jug-and-bowl or jug-and-basin combinations all sit higher. Age helps but doesn't decide it: 17th-century Dutch Delft and an 18th-century puzzle jug are in the upper half, while the highest figure belongs to a 19th-century printed jug.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for blue and white 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.
The most expensive blue and white jug ever sold on Sellingantiques was an exceptionally large transferware jug, made as a shop window display piece, in July 2023.
The Antique Blue and White Jugs between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Sparrow beak
- A small jug with a narrow triangular pointed lip, typical of 18th-century porcelain cream and milk jugs.
- Transfer print
- Decoration taken from an engraved copper plate onto tissue paper and laid on the pot, so one pattern can be repeated exactly.
- Flow blue
- Printed blue deliberately blurred in the glaze firing, giving a soft bleeding outline. Met here on a footbath and jug.
- Ironstone
- A dense, hard earthenware body used for heavy jugs and jug-and-basin sets.
- Hydra jug
- A standard moulded shape with an angular handle, found in this archive as graduated ironstone sets of three.
- Puzzle jug
- A pierced novelty jug that can't be drunk from until you work out its hidden channel. One 18th-century Dutch Delft example in the whole archive.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many come up for sale each year?
Around eight of these jugs come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, so the category turns over slowly.
Thirty-two different dealers have listed one. That's a very wide spread for a small category, which means almost no dealer carries them in any depth.
What does the pattern name in a title mean?
It's the named design the jug carries, and it's how the trade sorts these pots. Fisherman, Dragon, Pine Cone, Claremont, Trophies Marble, Italian Marble, Drape, Harlech and Gwent all appear.
"Pattern" is the single commonest word in these titles, in one in five of them.
Which materials do these jugs come in?
Four bodies turn up: porcelain, earthenware or pottery, ironstone, and tin-glazed delftware. Porcelain accounts for eight titles, against a larger body of pottery, ironstone and delft.
Decoration varies with the body. Hand-painted underglaze, transfer-printed, relief-moulded and flow blue all appear across the archive.
Are jug and bowl sets part of this category?
Yes, and washstand pieces form a persistent thread. Jug and basin, several jug and bowl sets, and two footbath jugs are all listed, one footbath sold with its matching jug.
These sit toward the top of the range, helped by both their size and their completeness.
Do sets and pairs turn up often?
Graduated sets appear five times: runs of three and one of four, in jasperware, Staffordshire pottery and Mason's Hydra ironstone. Matched pairs of delftware also appear.
So matched runs are a habit of the category rather than an accident.
What are the oldest examples listed?
The two 17th-century entries are both Dutch Delft chinoiserie, which makes Holland the earliest origin represented rather than England. A Dutch faience pitcher of about 1690 sits alongside them.
On the English side, a Worcester cream jug of about 1758 is among the earliest, with First Period and Dr Wall used in titles for that phase of the factory.