A punch bowl or punchbowl is a bowl, often large and wide, for serving mixed drinks such as hippocras, punch or mulled wine, with a ladle.[2] A monteith (seau crennelé in French) is a similar bowl, usually of silver or pottery, scalloped around the edge. It was mainly a wine cooler, designed for cooling glasses in icy water, the feet of the glasses held in the notches, but could be used as a punchbowl.[3] Monteiths appear in Britain around 1680, and were popular until the 1720s or so.[4]
Very large examples, like the Jerningham wine cooler, are usually called a wine cistern. These were more often used as wine coolers, for cooling wine bottles with icy water, but for a large party might be used as punchbowls.[5] Tureens normally used for soup or other food might also be used.
- ^ "Punch bowl and Cover". Metalwork. Victoria and Albert Museum.
- ^ The Language of Drink Graham and Sue Edwards 1988, Alan Sutton Publishing
- ^ Truman, Charles, ed., Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Silver, p. 198, 1996, Conran Octopus, ISBN 1850297592
- ^ *Schroder, Timothy, The National Trust Book of English Domestic Silver, 1500-1900, 324, 1988, Penguin/Viking, ISBN 0670802379
- ^ Schroder, 4