EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Stoneware Pitcher Discovered Today at Todd's Farm Flea Market in Rowley, Massachusetts

Sunday, July 12, 2015

A Stoneware Pitcher Discovered Today at Todd's Farm Flea Market in Rowley, Massachusetts

Today, marked, yet another Sunday morning scavenger hunt at Todd's Farm Flea Market in Rowley, Massachusetts. The fields were not completely full today seeing that this week also marks the start of another week's worth of antique shows in Brimfield, Massachusetts - an event, that I am also looking forward to. None-the-less, there were some good buys to be had this morning, which included a wonderful hand-carved folky looking dog that someone beat me to as a dealer was unloading his vehicle this morning. My initial reaction was that the dog was made in Pennsylvania in the nineteenth-century. It was a very-good buy for the person, who did purchase the 'happy' looking dog. I wish I had got it, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Todd's Farm Flea Market - Sunday July 12, 2015 - Rowley, MA

What I do want to show is this hand-thrown stoneware pitcher that I found at the flea market this morning. The dealer told me that she had owned it (until I bought it) for a number of years - she said, she purchased it from a long-time stoneware collector in the Garnder, Massachusetts-area. She said she didn't know the history of it prior to that, but she felt it was early.

The form of the pitcher is what really stood out to me - it may be difficult to say where this pitcher was made seeing that it is not marked and similar forms (or, pitchers) were made anywhere from Charlestown, Massachusetts (possibly even Portland, Maine) to Virginia in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. The one characteristic that really stood out to me is the distinct thumb print seen on the base of the handle. This kind of thumb print is not traditionally found on all stoneware handles, whether it being a jug, a pitcher or a crock. Any help on this piece is greatly appreciated!