After a run of mostly Anglian stamps, I thought I would mix it up with this Kentish pot. The triangular stamp has a leaf-vein motif, and the shape certainly puts me in mind of a silver birch leaf or perhaps a black poplar. The pot itself is in the collection of the museum in Maidstone, Kent. The leaf stamp was fairly straightforward to reproduce. I have not been able to locate a photograph of the pot (I have contacted the museum, so hopefully will hear from them after the new year), so I will be interested to find out whether I reproduced the oval one accurately.
The images below show the stamp dies – as usual, these are cut from antler tips and carved with a small knife. In this case, I also used a little chisel-tipped cutter to gouge the six recesses in the oval stamp (modified from a hand-forged awl).
And for once, I’m actually patient enough that I didn’t blog about it until after I had made a pot with them. In keeping with the original, it is a small biconic cup with an everted rim (flares out and away) and a fairly well-defined transition between the upper and lower portions – this is called the carination. The original is only about three inches wide, and this one will likely be about that size after drying and firing. One aspect of the original that I did NOT attempt to reproduce is that super thick bottom shown in the cross-section drawing, which would be a recipe for disaster whilst drying or firing.
farolfvs me fecit 
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