Everything about the dish in the photo below is correct for what is expected of Hervey Brooks - except the manner in which the slip was applied. Look closely at all the yellow slip decoration and see if you can notice what I am referring to.
Hervey Brooks Redware Dish - Goshen, Ct
Ca. 1820-1840
Redware Shards Excavated at Hervey Brooks' Pottery in Goshen, Ct
Photo Courtesy: Unearthing New England's Past: The Ceramic Evidence - Page 60
The manner in which the inner and outer slip decoration has been applied is correct for what is expected of Brooks. The form is basically right on. It's the inner decoration that is too neatly done. This is what has always made me question the maker of this pan. Everything about it says Brooks except for that inner decoration. The pan is definitely early nineteenth century and Connecticut made. Its form matches known examples in private collections and museums attributed to Brooks. The case could be made for another potter, but the colors do not match up to any other potter working in Connecticut or New England. The potter, Nathaniel Seymour made a similar styled pan in Hartford, Connecticut, but the color of his slip was not as bright and he typically used a darker background color. I have always accepted the dish as possibly being a controversial piece of Connecticut redware that was open to debate…until recently.
Notice the Neatness of the Center Slip Decoration as Opposed to the Outer 2 Lines
It Appears Like Two Separate Potter's Hands Applied the Decoration
I was doing some research for my book a few days ago when I came across an unexpected name with an even more shocking place in which the potter traveled to. I was looking at all the seventeenth and eighteenth century Essex County potters and a name jumped out at me. The Kettel family of Charlestown and Salem/South Danvers, Massachusetts was synonymous with skilled slip decoration of the late seventeenth and eighteenth century. All the slip decorated shards I found on the shores of Danversport, Massachusetts are believed to be from this family.
According to records, a well-known descendent of this family, Jonathan Kettel (b. 1758) moved from South Danvers to Goshen Connecticut in the latter years of the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Previously, he worked in Essex County, where many of his wares demonstrated the use of yellow slip. Jonathan Kettel likely moved to work with Hervey Brooks who already had an established business in Goshen. It is my guess that the use of slip decoration faded away in New England by the turn of the nineteenth century in everywhere but Connecticut. Kettel may have moved there because of his skill with slip and it was the only state in New England that was still actively using the decorative technique. He was a potter, who had a skill and he traveled to where that skill was in demand for work. That is my understanding of why he may have left the flourishing Essex County industry for Connecticut.
It is my strong belief that the inner decoration on the bowl above is from the hand of Jonathan Kettel, who likely possessed a much more skilled hand at applying more complicated slip decorations than Brooks was able to accomplish on his own. But, the two squiggly lines that are not neatly applied, were probably done by Brooks' hand. The form was also probably made by Brooks. That is absolutely amazing to me to be able to imagine the idea of two highly important potters seen on one dish. I also do not know of any examples beyond possibly this dish that have been properly attributed to Jonathan Kettel.
Equally as interestingly, records reveal that Jonathan Kettel died in Newburyport in 1849. It is also my belief that Kettel went to Newburyport in an attempt to revive the Newburyport industry that ended when the Daniel Bayley Pottery Company ceased operation in 1799. There are no known nineteenth century potters who worked in Newburyport, despite upwards of a dozen or so potters who worked in the maritime city in the eighteenth century. I feel it is a safe bet that Kettel may have been employed in Newburyport as a potter sometime between his work in Goshen and his death in 1849. I think that could be very important information if proven true considering this may be new information…at the least, it is to me. Kettel being in Newburyport could also only be a coincidence, but that seems unlikely. I wonder what his output in Newburyport may have looked like. Could he have used slip decoration?
Much More to Come…Including my latest article in the New England Antiques Journal, which should be on newsstands in the coming days. It's a story of my favorite potter, Charles Solares turned Charles Lawrence and his fascinating story in Beverly, Massachusetts. In the report you'll learn how Boston truly got the nickname, BeanTown. Please stay tuned for more!
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