Rounded, wheel-thrown 17th century Portuguese faience HolyWater pot decorated in cobalt-blue on a tin-white enamel glaze.The border is defined by the accentuated flaring lip from wherethe dented handle protrudes, while the tightly strangled base ishighlighted by a cylindrical edge.The body is decorated with an oval framed cartouche fullyfilled with the ‘Ângulo’ family crest, framed on each side by symmetricalscrolls of branches of ‘Chinese pine’. The handle is definedby raised elements, randomized in the first firing, and by lateralcountersinking sections pressed manually by the potter beforethe application of the tin glaze, and decorated in cobalt-blue withdiagonal lines reinforcing the detail.According to Aníbal Pinto de Faria, the gold heraldic withfive green roundels, broken in silver and placed in saltire, belongsto the Ângulo family, descendants of a son of King Ângulo ofScotland in the late 12th century, who settled in the Kingdom ofLeon in the early 13th century and from there came into Portugalat an unknown date. It is recorded that one member of the familysettled in Malacca in the late 16th century, acquiring considerablewealth and adopting thereafter an aristocratic lifestyle.A similar piece, with oval cartouche filled with a characteristicallyChristian closed crown and eastern influenced scrolls, is knownat the Lüneburg Museum in Northern Germany, city with a recordof important Portuguese faience archaeological finds, suggestingthe likelihood of regular trading relations with Portugal and Spain.This particular Holy Water pot has characteristics typicalof the pieces produced for Northern Europe, particularly for theHanseatic League market, which evolves from the 1620s, later than that of the Low Countries. Considering that comparativelythis market was less familiar with Chinese Porcelain, the purposein this case, rather than copying oriental models, was to adopt anexotic decorative grammar that could combine a faraway flavourwith erudite European references closer to everyday use, in hybridand original objects that would promote and privilege creativefreedom in an uncompromising yet exuberant brush stroke.Pieces produced for Northern European markets have awider range of shapes than those exported to the Low Countries,market which favoured more exuberant display pieces. In the formerit is discernible a taste for hollow shaped pieces, particularlywine jugs, adopting a more fantasized but simultaneously moreconservative decorative language, evoking exoticism but in a broaderEuropean taste context.The decorative language of these pieces is often characterizedby a profusion of heraldic motifs of local families or cities, andmonograms of the family that commissioned them; in some cases,the iconography adopted is related to a wine theme, a matrimonialalliance or other major celebratory occasion to which the objectrelated and because of which it is often dated.