Content note: A chamber pot modelled as the personified figure of Britain (John Bull). This object is shown as it was published. Why
John Bull chamber pot (Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, Caldas da Rainha)
A glazed red-clay chamber pot modelled as a stout, scowling John Bull with clenched fists and a striped waistcoat moulded with the words JOHN BULL, so that the personified Britain literally becomes a receptacle for waste. The tell is the object itself: the target is reduced by form and function to a chamber pot.
- Date
- 1890
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Fábrica de Faianças das Caldas da Rainha (Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro), Portugal
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Kingdom of Portugal
- Medium
- Object
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Kingdom of Portugal
- Leader
- Carlos I
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Theme
- Empire and colonialism
- Event
- British Ultimatum of 1890
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- CC BY 2.0 (photograph, reviewed on Commons); depicted object by an artist who died in 1905
Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões (Flickr, CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons. Object: Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846-1905), Museu Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, Lisbon
Text on the object
[J]OHN BULL
Relief lettering moulded across the waistcoat stripes; the first and last letters are partly obscured by glaze and the lettering is read from the photograph at 960 px.
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