The Julia sale included a red earthenware jar that appeared like William Pecker's (circa 1790-1820) type of decoration regularly applied in Merrimacport, Massachusetts before 1820, but the form didn't seem to fit. None-the-less, I setup a phone bid for this object. Honestly, I would have loved to have attended the sale, but I had a prior obligation that I had to fulfill. In the end, I was outbid by a competing bidder, but it was a good learning experience seeing that I later learned that this jar was likely produced elsewhere in New England. I also believe that some of this potter's work is mistakable today for products made at the Pecker Pottery in Merrimacport due to a comparable color pattern that combines a pumpkin or reddish-colored glaze with manganese. The jar that sold at Julia's is a good example of why it is difficult to properly attribute a specific object on glaze-alone to a certain potter (or, potter's business) today - ultimately, "most" glazes or decorative patterns are not unique to any single potter or potter's business today.
Thomas O'Hara Goodwin Red Earthenware Jar - Elmwood or West Hartford, CT
Circa Early-19th Century
Stands 9 3/4" Tall
Photo Courtesy: James D. Julia Auctions - Fairfield, ME
Recently, while studying a group of objects owned by the Connecticut Historic Society in Hartford, Connecticut - I found a similar jar that was likely related to the jar that I bid on about four-years ago. The jar that is owned by the historical society is prominently stamped across the front, 'T.O. GOODWIN.' This is the maker's mark for Thomas O'Hara Goodwin (1796-1880), a nineteenth-century potter, from Connecticut.Stands 9 3/4" Tall
Photo Courtesy: James D. Julia Auctions - Fairfield, ME
According to Lura Woodside Watkins book, 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares,' "The first Goodwins and the first Seymours were redware men. The Goodwin Pottery was started by Seth Goodwin before 1800 in the suburb now known as Elmwood. It is thought he set up in business in 1795, when he was twenty-three years old. His son Thomas O'Hara Goodwin was born in 1796.
Seth Goodwin was a redware potter of the old school; his son (Thomas) was a redware potter and a stoneware potter. It is not uncommon today to find stoneware marked 'T.O. Goodwin / Hartford." However, it is rare today to find any redware or red earthenware marked with Goodwin's stamp.
Watkins only discussed the Goodwin family's work for a few paragraphs in her book; although, this was a significant family of potters from Connecticut that should be recognized today for their accomplishments in the state's red earthenware and stoneware industries in the (very-late) eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.
Cape Cod antiques dealer, Brian Cullity also acknowledged the red earthenware produced by Thomas O'Hara Goodwin in a regional exhibit that he assembled at the Sandwich Museum on Cape Cod in 1991 titled, 'Slipped and Glazed: Regional American Redware,' which featured a similar stamped jar as the example shown below.
Thomas O'Hara Goodwin Red Earthenware Jar - Elmwood or West Hartford, CT
Stamped 'T.O. GOODWIN'
Circa Early-19th Century
Stands 8 1/2" Tall
Photo Courtesy: Connecticut Historical Society - Hartford, CT
Circa Early-19th Century
Stands 8 1/2" Tall
Photo Courtesy: Connecticut Historical Society - Hartford, CT
Close-Up of the 'T.O. GOODWIN' Stamp
Photo Courtesy: Connecticut Historical Society - Hartford, CT
Overall, Goodwin produced the expected forms of early-nineteenth-century utilitarian red earthenware in New England; however, he also applied slip to some of the objects that he created, which I feel could be mistaken for products made at the Nathaniel Seymour (1763-1849) Pottery in nearby West Hartford, Connecticut. For example, the plate shown below could easily be mistaken for a Seymour Pottery product because of the form, the glaze color and the color of the slip, but written in the center of the plate, it reads, 'Thomas / Goodwin / West Hartford / CT.'
With this understanding: a question that I must ask collectors and museum professionals, who own slip decorated bowls, plates and platters related to the Seymour Pottery - rather, than being a Seymour Pottery product - could some of these objects actually be related to Thomas O'Hara Goodwin's output three-miles away in Elmwood, Connecticut? It is my belief that there was more red earthenware produced by Nathaniel Seymour than Thomas O'Hara Goodwin before he began producing stoneware; although, I think the plate shown below is an interesting comparison for some of the forms that are attributed to the Seymour Pottery today.
Potentially, this could be a similar scenario when compared to the study of red earthenware produced in Newburyport, Massachusetts between the 1770's and the 1790's - due to the amount of research that has been devoted to the Daniel Bayley Pottery in Newburyport between 1766-1799 - most products that appear like the Bayley Pottery output today are attributed to this business; although, there were other businesses in Newburyport during this same period that produced similar wares with potters who also worked at the Bayley Pottery. In the case of the West Hartford Potteries in the early-1800's - the Seymour Pottery is the most-known today, but could there have been an influence from the Seymour Pottery with other local West Hartford potters, such Thomas O'Hara Goodwin in the early-1800's. That's kind of the idea or theory that the following plate represents to me.
Thomas O'Hara Goodwin Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Plate - Elmwood or West Hartford, CT
Written in Slip 'Thomas / Goodwin / West Hartford / CT'
Circa Early-19th Century
Photo Courtesy: Connecticut Historical Society - Hartford, CT
The map pictured below shows the three-mile distance between West Hartford, Connecticut and Elmwood, Connecticut today. Undoubtedly, the Seymour families and the Goodwin families must have known each other in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.
Map Shows the Distance Between West Hartford, CT and Elmwood, CT
Roughly Three-Miles Separate the Two Locations
Photo Courtesy: MapQuest
No comments:
Post a Comment