EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Possible Example of Slip Decorated Canadian-Made Red Earthenware Found in a House in Morrisonville, New York

Thursday, January 8, 2015

A Possible Example of Slip Decorated Canadian-Made Red Earthenware Found in a House in Morrisonville, New York

According to the book, Early Canadian Pottery (published in 1971) by Donald Webster, "Canadian Pottery is a relatively recent focus for the attention of collectors, and only very recently has it received any real attention. Part of the reason for this may be that ceramics collectors, until lately, were largely oriented solely toward object aesthetics, with little appreciation of the historical, technological, or cultural manifestations of their subject...No early studies exist on Canadian ceramics, and this lack of previous specialized work and publication makes some core problems blatantly apparent. Above all, how do we determine just what pottery is Canadian in origin and what is not? And then, once we know or at least suspect that a piece is in fact Canadian, the question rises of making attributions to a specific area or a specific pottery or factory."

In keeping with the last report that targeted Canadian-made red earthenware products that migrated into America in the nineteenth-century and likewise, American-made red earthenware products that drifted into Canada in those years - I am going to discuss an interesting piece that I discovered at the Boston Antiques and Design Show and Sale in Wilmington, Massachusetts last weekend.

I drove to the Wilmington show from my house in Newburyport, Massachusetts (about a twenty-five minute drive) last Sunday with no intentions of buying anything. It wasn't really a consideration. My only motive was to walk around the event to see if I could learn anything. There were dozens of dealers setup in room settings - and this sale was unlike many of the other shows I have written about in the past year. Most of the shows I go to usually showcase dealers who specialize in Americana. Instead, this show was a mixture of dealers from a variety specialties in the antiques field. The show was geared for interior designers as much as it was for antique collectors. Its my estimate that for every Americana dealer there were ten other dealers who specialized in another field like fine art, modern art, imported ceramics, foreign antiques, vintage posters and more.

Poster for the Boston Antiques & Design Show & Sale in Wilmington, Ma

Shriner's Auditorium - Wilmington, Ma

Shriner's Auditorium Box Office in Wilmington, Ma

Shriner's Auditorium Entrance in Wilmington, Ma

Entrance to the Boston Antiques & Design Show & Sale

Boston Antiques & Design Show & Sale

Sample of the Pottery at the Boston Antiques & Design Show & Sale

Like I said, I really had little expectations of buying anything at this show; however, in the booth of Partridge Hollow Antiques from Milton, Vermont, I discovered this little hand-thrown red earthenware vase for only five-bucks. The dealer told me he found it last fall at an estate sale in Morrisonville, New York, which is a very small town (population of under 1,600 residents) just west of Plattsburg, New York and Lake Champlain. Interestingly, Morrisonville is roughly sixty-five miles south of Montreal and less than thirty miles south of the Quebec border in Canada.

I had shown this small vase to Cape Cod antiques dealer, Brian Cullity while at the show and he said the decoration on the jar seemed to have a French influence. Although, he said the form did not appear to correspond with any French styles he knew of. I hadn't really throught about where this little vase could have been made when I purchased it, but soon after speaking with Brian it clicked, "I bet this could be a Canadian-made example of red earthenware."

If you look at the slip decoration on this vase, you will notice it is white, rather, than the common yellow colored slip that is typically seen on American-made products from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. From my observations and from what I have read, there appears to have been a lot of white colored slip used in places like Ontario, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Prince Edward Island in Canada in the nineteenth-century. It was used for interior glazes and for decoration on the exterior of pots, crocks and many other utilitarian forms. Based on this information, its possible that this vase is from a French-inspired or French-influenced potter, who worked somewhere in Canada, which would make sense considering the huge French influence that was established in places like Quebec.

I think this is a great little piece that was very-possibly made somewhere in Canada towards the latter-half of the nineteenth-century (after 1870) when forms like vases became fashionable. I also like the cupped and glazed base, which is also a rare pair of characteristics I have seen done in New England before. If you continue to look carefully at the photos below, you will see there are parts of the base that were over-fired in the kiln. I also enjoy the use of slip mixed with manganese for the exterior decoration; this kind of combination is rare today. Overall, this vase has no real condition issues except for a small flea bite along the rim. I really couldn't do any harm with a price tag of only, five-dollars.