Norwich Castle Museum (Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service) 420.70.946

Source Description:

Hand-colored mezzotint printed for Carington Bowles, 69 St Paul's Churchyard, London, about 1784-1786. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum.

Description:

Pearlware teapot printed in black with Keep within Compass prints, showing the virtuous woman on one side and the virtuous man on the other. The female figure is on the principal side, that is, the side seen by a right-handed person when pouring the tea. She holds a book inscribed "The Pleasures of Imagination Realized" and stands beside an open jewellery chest labelled "The reward of Virtue": above her "FEAR GOD", around her "KEEP WITHIN COMPASS AND YOU SHALL BE SURE TO AVOID MANY TROUBLES WHICH OTHERS ENDURE", to the left "Attend unto this simple fact as thro[ugh] this life you rove", to the right "That virtuous and prudent ways will gain esteem and love" and below her "Prudence brings Esteem". The four scenes beyond the compass indicate the fate of the woman who does not keep within compass: idleness (playing cards scattered on the ground) and dissipation (raising a glass and dropping a baby) lead to arrest by two constables and picking oakum in the workhouse.