American Toby Jug Museum 

Fireman 3/4-body majolica toby jug produced by Orchies of Orchies, France, circa 1910. Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with organizing the first professional French fire fighters. Formed in 1810 after a fire at the ballroom n the Austrian Embassy in Paris, the firemen, or sapeurs-pompiers, were initially recruiting from the French Army. This firefighter holds the nozzle of a fire hose in front of him and the hose running to his back forming the handle of the jug. Two versions of this jug are known, one with his mouth open and the much rare model with the mouth closed. Orchies model numbers are a combination of letters and numbers. The letters are an abbreviation for the name of the jug and the number is the size of the jug. This jug is incised with the designer's name, Foubert, near the base on the left side. Photos of Fireman with closed mouth are from the collection of Jean-Pierre Ducasse.