EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: The Molded Household Red Earthenware Produced in Canada as Early as the Late 1850's

Friday, February 13, 2015

The Molded Household Red Earthenware Produced in Canada as Early as the Late 1850's

According to the book, Early Canadian Pottery by Donald Webster, "The individual craft-based potter in Canada was always severely limited in the variety and complexity of what they could produce. Reliance on locally available red-firing clays; the impossibility of competing with mass-produced importations; and the lack of available capital or any available technological base; all were factors which seriously hindered the development of a modern ceramics industry in Canada and for a long time restricted native manufacture to the level of hand-made earthenware...The rudiments of a factory system based on invested capital and technology, began apparently at the Brantford Pottery with the introduction in the late 1850's of moulded and slip-cast wares...Sectional moulding, and assembly from various component parts, was an essential technique for producing one pottery type that became extremely popular in the 19th century in North America-the figure or patterned wares with integral decorative motifs standing in relief. This moulded pottery was commonly produced as teapots, pitchers, and spittoons, and very often was covered with that ubiquitous 19th century glaze known in different areas as Rockingham, Bennington or spatter."

The Brantford, Ontario Pottery was established by the American stoneware potter, Justus Morton, who reportedly migrated a few hundred miles west from Lyons, New York in 1848. The business he established reportedly operated from 1849 to 1907 - a period that saw the company manufacture utilitarian wares almost uninterrupted (nonstop) with very-few exceptions - a feat that was rarely met by many businesses in North America that did not operate in a factory kind of atmosphere in the 1800's. Output at the business consisted of mostly stoneware even though I have found reports that cite red earthenware was also a part of Brantford's line of production. According to archaeological investigations at the business - wares were sometimes marked Brantford/Canada, which leads me to believe there may have been an export business that shipped wares elsewhere possibly into America in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. Unfortunately, many of the company's wares are unmarked leaving attributions sometimes difficult today. The business has been described as "arguably the most important nineteenth-century potter's business in Canada that was a part of a new wave of business ownership that took on the advancements of the technological revolution."

This is a map that shows the two-hundred or-so mile trek Morton made west from Lyons, New York to Brantford, Ontario in 1848. The town of Lyons is markd with a B and Blantford is marked with an A.

Map Shows Lyons, NY and Brantford, Ontario

This is the Trek, Justus Morton Made in 1848

Morton Established the Brantford Pottery in 1849
Brantford Pottery: Ca. 1849-1907

Photo Courtesy: Mapquest

Here is a link to a report kept at the Royal Ontario Museum that details the archaeology and history of the Brantford Pottery.

Shown below is a molded red earthenware pitcher possibly made at the Brantford Pottery in Ontario in the late 1850's or the 1860's. It sold at Maple Leaf Auctions in Ontario in the spring of 2013. It was described by the auction-house: "A truly impressive redware pitcher with extreme proportions. 10 1/2" tall at the peak of the handle and a bold broad form. Heavy patterning with swirls top and bottom and a crude leaf and berry design middle. Orange under glaze with heavy brown speckle. Likely an early Brantford Ontario piece. Remarkable condition! Rings true. An amazing early redware pitcher that will not be ignored! Conjures images of pioneer travels."

Mid-19th Century Molded Red Earthenware Pitcher Likely Made in Ontario, Canada

Possibly Produced at the Brantford Pottery in the Late 1850's or the 1860's

Stands 10 1/2" Tall

Photo Courtesy: Maple Leaf Auctions - Carleton Place, Ontario

The Pitcher's Other Side

Photo Courtesy: Maple Leaf Auctions - Carleton Place, Ontario

In today's first report, a group of red earthenware products were shown - I felt that some could be mistaken for products made in America - especially by the potters who owned businesses that operated in the states that bordered the Canadian provinces in the nineteenth-century.

In this second report, I want to briefly discuss the kind of pottery that is referenced in the citation above. I'm sure that many people can agree they have seen this kind of utilitarian ceramic in antique shops across the eastern seaboard. I know that I commonly see this type of product in stores I frequently visit in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts - and I regularly assume they are products that were manufactured in places like Vermont; however, I feel this is an attribution that is too quickly established by myself today since related wares were also produced at many businesses in Canada. Much like Canadian red earthenware that has made its way south across the American border over the years confusing some people (including myself) who believe that some of this redware could be an American-made product - I also believe this complication regularly happens today with molded wares that resemble products that were made in places like Vermont, New York, New Jersey and Ohio in the 1800's. The major difference in all of these wares is the color of the body - some of the Canadian products display a reddish colored body while the better-part of the American-made wares present a white colored clay body.

A few months ago, I went out picking in the lakes region of New Hampshire - my first stop was a group of antique-type shops in downtown Laconia, New Hampshire. Inside the first shop I entered (more like an antique center), I found a highly decorated molded red earthenware pitcher mixed in with all sorts of bric-a-brac inside a dealer's space. I immediately knew it was something from the 1800's; although, I wasn't positive of where it was made. Initially, when I picked the pitcher up - I felt it was a Bennington, Vermont-type product even though the shape or form and the decoration appeared different than what I had come to expect from those products. However, when I looked closely at the base, I saw a red colored clay. I knew it was something so I didn't hesitate carrying it up to the counter in the front of the shop to purchase, but what it was and who made it became a mystery to me since last November.

Soon after I bought it, I showed the colorful pitcher around to a few knowledgeable people, but no one really had a positive thought of where it could have been made - and until recently, I had never really given a Canadian attribution any kind of thought. Nevertheless, this latest discussion has me believing this pitcher is possibly a high-end example of the molded type of wares made in Canada after the late-1850's. The glaze is spectacular!

I have analyzed a small group of molded pots attributed to potters in Canada in the past few days and it is my feeling that this molded pitcher is as a quality example of this kind of ware made in possibly Quebec or Ontario in the late-1850's, the 1860's - or very-soon after.