Vessels from the Piaskowa Street pottery

In 2007, archaeologists investigated the remains of Bolesławiec's earliest known early-modern pottery workshop on Piaskowa Street. Most wares recovered there date from the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century. Several dozen reconstructed vessels entered the museum display.

They include cobalt-glazed jugs depicting the Crucifixion. Alongside these richly decorated pieces are brown jugs with rouletted ornament, made with a tool that impresses a repeating pattern. The differences lie both in the surface colour and in the way the decoration was produced.

The finds also include groups of bottles and small apothecary vessels. The workshop therefore supplied wares for various purposes, ranging from jugs to containers associated with storing medicinal preparations.

Local raw materials supported this craft: the Bóbr and Kwisa river basins contain abundant clay suitable for stoneware. They also provide clays used for glazing. These produced the characteristic, slightly glossy brown surface known as clay glaze. The brown of the older vessels is therefore linked to a raw material available in the region.