Tin-glazed earthenware was probably introduced into England by Jasper Andries and Jacob Jansen, who came over from Antwerp and settled in Norwich in 1567. By 1571 Jansen had moved to London, where he was recorded as a ‘Pottmaker’ in Duke's Place, Aldgate, along with six other Flemish potters. After Jansen's death in 1593 the pottery continued in existence until at least 1603 and probably as late as 1615. Very little intact pottery can be attributed to Aldgate and it is only from the 1620s that substantial quantities of tin-glazed ware survives which can be attributed firmly to potteries in the London area.

By then Chinese blue and white porcelain of the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), imported by the Dutch and English East India Companies, was creating a demand which European potters attempted to satisfy by imitating its decoration on the white surface of tin-glazed earthenware. This bottle, decorated with a late Ming design traditionally known as ‘bird on rock’, is one of the earliest examples of the influence of Chinese blue and white porcelain on English ceramics. Its date of 1628 is significant, for in that year a patent for the manufacture of galliware, the contemporary term for tin-glazed earthenware, was granted to Christian Wilhelm, the proprietor of a pottery at Pickleherring in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames. Local records indicate that his pottery was probably in Vine Yard, a short distance south of Pickleherring Street. It was operating by 1618 and continued until the early eighteenth century.