EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: An 18th Century Red Earthenware Object Discovered in a Shop in Central New Hampshire in Late-2014

Friday, September 25, 2015

An 18th Century Red Earthenware Object Discovered in a Shop in Central New Hampshire in Late-2014

Nearly one-year ago, I discovered an eighteenth-century red earthenware object, that appears like a pipkin, in a shop in central New Hampshire. The overall form of the so-called pipkin is a little different than the more traditional three-footed forms that were imported into the American colonies in the eighteenth-century from England and continental Europe. These types of objects have been found in archaeological contexts in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Charlestown, Massachusetts, Boston, New York City - and, further south into the Mid-Atlantic region and in the southern states like Virginia. However, domestic potters also produced the form in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.

A simple pipkin definition can be said that it is an earthenware pot with a horizontal handle that was used over hundreds of years for various cooking needs over a direct flame.

I'm not entirely sure what to call this object (fairly sure it is a pipkin), but after reviewing a large group of objects owned by the Museum of London in England - the glaze style seems to correspond with some products that the museum describes as having been manufactured during the 'Post-Medieval Period' or made before 1750. Personally, I believe this is an early eighteenth-century European-made object. But, I suppose that without knowing any further information about this object that it could also be a domestic product. I feel the glaze could also be mistaken for something applied by an American potter. Unfortunately, I just don't know anymore information past the form (i.e. origin) and where I found the object than what is written in tonight's report.

I should also mention that the base of this object still retains what appears to be the partial remains of an old museum label. What museum? I don't know; although, it is not the first ex-museum object that I have discovered in northern New England. Pretty-much exactly one-year ago is when I discovered a late-seventeenth or early-eighteenth-century small stoneware jug that was manufactured in Germany, which also still retained the remains of a museum label at an indoor flea market on the coast in southern Maine. In this case, too - "what museum" remains the question. That particular label appeared like it may have been involved with a fire or exposed to a flame or a hot temperature. The jug, itself, does not exhibit any type of damage when compared to what is seen on the label. Could this be merely coincidental - or, is there more to this story. I'm not sure, but I will show the stoneware jug and its label in another report soon enough.