EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Lidded Double-Handled Red Earthenware Bowl Covered in Slip Decoration to be Sold at Tim Gould's Auction in November 2014

Thursday, October 23, 2014

A Lidded Double-Handled Red Earthenware Bowl Covered in Slip Decoration to be Sold at Tim Gould's Auction in November 2014

The red earthenware industry (and a small stoneware business) that existed in Charlestown, Massachusetts prior to the American Revolution, circa 1635-1775 provided many coastal areas of New England with utilitarian pottery needs. There were also ties with colonies and potters to the south. Through the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries, upwards of forty or more documented potters were tied to Charlestown's industry; however that does not include any unidentified potters, slave potters, unknown traveling potters and apprentices. Unfortunately, not a whole lot exists today that can truly define this period (or industry) of New England craftsmanship.

Charlestown's entire industry was burned at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775; conclusively it was never the same. Afterwards, many potters relocated elsewhere in New England; although some potters did return. But overall the red earthenware industry was a shadow of its former self. A stoneware industry, established by Jonathan Fenton and Frederick Carpenter eventually phased out most of the red earthenware industry all-together in Charlestown in the 1790s, which continued into the nineteenth-century.

I have actually been in search of any possible surviving examples of Charlestown red earthenware since I began my studies in 2012 with artifacts recovered in Charlestown at the Boston Archaeology Department in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. The artifacts were all found when the area was excavated during the archaeology conducted on behalf of Boston's Big Dig Project in the 1980s. In this time, I have seen some pieces emerge that I felt could strongly be related to Charlestown - while there are other pieces that I have felt are a legitimate suspect that have actually turned out to be related to other eighteenth-century businesses in New England. I have even come across some examples that I have later realized are early nineteenth-century products. It's surprising that despite the huge size of Charlestown's industry, which slightly resembled a factory-type atmosphere seen in England in the eighteenth-century that very-few legitimate examples of Charlestown-made utilitarian pottery are known to exist today.

Nonetheless, I receive a large number of auction flyers in the mail from auctioneers located around the county; yesterday I received a brochure from Tim Gould Auctions in Gardiner, Maine that really caught my attention. Gould Auctions is known for its quality Americana that is often fresh-to-the-market from central and northern New England homes and buildings. His auctions have turned up great examples of red earthenware made all-over New England over the years highlighted by a marvelous example of colorful Bristol County, Massachusetts red earthenware, which brought more than $25,000 almost a decade ago.

The latest brochure shows a small group of red earthenware that will be sold in Gardiner on November 22, 2014, which includes two examples of Maine red earthenware made by the Safford family in Monmouth, Maine in the nineteenth-century. Although, pictured directly in between the Safford pieces is a slip decorated doubled-handled lidded bowl (possibly a sugar bowl) that I believe was made in Charlestown, Massachusetts, circa 1735-1755. This is going to be an exciting piece of pottery to see sell!

Charlestown, Mass. Pot to be Sold in Augusta, Maine