EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Days Worth of Finds in a Home in East Sandwich, Massachusetts on Cape Cod

Friday, May 22, 2015

A Days Worth of Finds in a Home in East Sandwich, Massachusetts on Cape Cod

As my previous post suggested -- I was invited to pick a home in East Sandwich, Massachusetts today on Cape Cod; the home was full of period furniture - and, artwork from the 1800's and the 1900's. All of the objects that I picked descended through a relative of the family who was close friends to Frederick H. Norton, a fourth generation potter, who was a direct relative of the famed Norton family of potters in the 1700's and the 1800's. All of these pieces that I am about to show came directly from Norton to this family. Each piece is also labeled with a number on the base. The number corresponds with a number in a book that the family owns, which identifies the object and how it was obtained.

Sagamore Bridge - Cape Cod, Mass.

Cape Cod, Mass.

This first red earthenware vase is a wonderful small object that was made at Thomas Nickerson's Merrimac Pottery Company in Newburyport, Massachusetts in the late-1890's. It was identified by the family as having been made by Robertson in the late-nineteenth-century.

Late-19th Century Red Earthenware Vase Made in Newburyport, MA

Identified by the Family as Having Been Made by Hugh Robertson in the 1890

Hugh Robertson Owned the Merrimac Pottery Company

Stands 5 1/2" Tall

View of the Base

Next, is this pair of vases that were made by Frederick H. Norton in the 1940's. Honestly, I just learned of Norton's work about a week ago through this family, but I have quickly learned that he was an import twentieth-century potter in Massachusetts. All of the examples of Norton's work that I know of today are owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I believe that these vases are equal to many of the vases that are owned by the museum.

Here is a link to some of the vases made by Norton that are owned by the MFA in Boston. You will see obvious differences between these vases and those that are owned by the museum.

Large 20th Century Painted Red Earthenware Vases with Decorative African Animals

Family Identified These as Products Made by F.H. Norton in Cambridge, Mass. in the 1940s

(Left) Stands 12 1/2" Tall

(Right) Stands 12 1/4" Tall

View of the Bases

This red earthenware flower pot was identified by the family as a product that was made by the traveling potter, John Donovan at the Lamson Pottery in Exeter, New Hampshire in the nineteenth-century.

19th Century Red Earthenware Flower Pot

Family Identified it as a Product from the Lamson Pottery in Exeter, NH

Family Says it May Have Been Made by John Donovan

Stands 4 1/4" Tall

View of the Interior

View of the Base

I also acquired this beautifully glazed red earthenware vase that also descended from Norton to this family. Unfortunately, I am not positive where this vase was made, but I believe it to be a product from a potter's business in the early twentieth-century, possibly somewhere along coastal Massachusetts.