I have always found it interesting to see how the values and desires that surround American-made red earthenware and stoneware have evolved over the years as new scholarship is presented. For example, some longtime New England-based antique dealers have told me that a piece of red earthenware would never have been presented at basically any quality antique show decades ago; however, that view has changed in recent decades with red earthenware often standing as a focal point in some dealer's booths today.
Sheffield, Massachusetts antiques dealer, Samuel Herrup loaned me a catalog from his personal library recently that documented a large collection of decorative objects that were on temporary loan at the Park Square Building in Boston in 1925 from December 8th to December 29th. The three-week exhibition demonstrated some of the finer points in American craftsmanship and American-made utilitarian wares drawn from private American collections. The exhibit spanned a number of eighteenth and nineteenth-century categories that included furniture, silver, portraits, miniatures, wax silhouettes, prints, glass, pottery, pewter, China, textiles and early lighting. Needless to say - I assume the show captured the attention from a national audience.
What I want to highlight today is the fact that this exhibit took a special interest in American-made utilitarian pottery, which was an idea that didn't really translate with the general antique collector's population for many decades to come.
Loan Exhibition Catalog that Happened in Boston on December 8-29, 1925
The Show Displayed a Wonderful Assortment of American-Made Decorative Objects
There are a number of aspects that I find fascinating about the pottery section in this exhibit today, which includes the idea of what was perceived in 1925 as important American-made pottery. Interestingly, in some ways, the desire among collectors has not changed today; English slipware, Pennsylvania slipware, Hartford, Connecticut red earthenware, southeastern Massachusetts red earthenware, Charlestown, Massachusetts stoneware, Abington, Massachusetts red earthenware, Danvers (Essex County), Massachusetts red earthenware, Concord, New Hampshire red earthenware and Edgefield, South Carolina stoneware are some of the more important objects from this aspect of the exhibition.
(Right) Some of the Pottery Displayed in the Loan Exhibition
(Left) Also, Some of the Descriptions that Accompanied These Objects
Another View of Some of the Pottery Displayed in the Loan Exhibition
I find it extremely interesting that even in 1925 - some of the objects from Edgefield South Carolina were recognized as important objects from the nineteenth-century. It's now exactly ninety-years later - and, those same objects are more desired today than ever mainly due to the recent scholarship published in Ceramics in America, which has directly tied some of these objects to documented slave potters from the nineteenth-century.
It should be no surprise, either that the wares from southeastern Massachusetts were also held in high regards in 1925; Charles D. Cook and the Magazine Antiques also helped contribute to this recognition around the same period with a series of short articles that Cook wrote for the prestigious magazine. Those articles mostly focused on the wares made in southern New England (i.e southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island). I happen to find it especially interesting that the owner of some these objects (1925 catalog), Mrs. William Whitman, Jr. attributes them to Barnstable, Massachusetts (probably meaning the Parker-Bradford Pottery). Unfortunately, I don't believe that attribution is correct.
I have spoken in detail with Cape Cod, Massachusetts antiques dealer and past museum curator, Brian Cullity about this subject - and, he agrees with me. Brian has actually excavated some of the material produced at the Barnstable Pottery - and, his findings do not correspond with the types of wares that this exhibit attributes to Barnstable. My feeling is that a number of products that were made further west near the Taunton River in southeastern Massachusetts migrated to the Barnstable-area in the 1800's - that's probably the context that they were discovered within in the early-twentieth-century. I should also note that this same attribution, along with the same products from this exhibit, are pictured in John Spargo's book 'Early American Pottery and China,' which was published a year after this loan exhibition in 1926. It's definitely possible that Spargo traveled to this exhibit, where he chose some of the objects from this show for his book.
The Description of Some of the Pottery in the Loan Exhibition Attributed to Barnstable, Mass.
Owned by Mrs. William Whitman, Jr.
Pottery Attributed to Barnstable, Mass. in John Spargo's Book 'Early American Pottery and China'
Owned by Mrs. William Whitman, Jr.
These Same Objects were on Loan in Boston in 1925
The Book was Published in 1926
The exhibit catalog also highlighted a group of objects that are attributed to some of the potters in Connecticut by another collector, Mr. H.B. Russell. These same objects are also pictured in Spargo's book with the same attribution. However, these objects are undoubtedly products that were made in Massachusetts. It's possible that Mr. H.B. Russell collected them in the Connecticut-area in the early-1900's, which probably indicates that there was an export system that once existed from Massachusetts to Connecticut; although, these three products are reminiscent today to the types of wares that were made in southeastern Massachusetts. I should also point out that Massachusetts author, Lura Woodwise Watkins also attributes two of these products (below: left & right jars) to Connecticut in her book, 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares.'
Red Earthenware Attributed to Connecticut in the Loan Exhibition in Boston
Owned by Mr. H.B. Russell
These Objects Were Also Pictured in Spargo's Book with the Same Attribution
These Are Actually Coastal Massachusetts-Made Objects
The most-important falsehood that I see in this wonderful exhibition is the attribution given to a group of brown-glazed stoneware products by their owner, Mrs. William Whitman, Jr - she attributes these objects to the Jeremiah Burpee (1781-1862) Pottery in Boscowan, New Hampshire. These objects and this attribution also made their way into John Spargo's book, 'Early American Pottery and China.' This has been an inaccurate attribution for almost a century now.
Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins even made mention of this attribution in her important book 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares,' which was published in 1950. She basically said that despite past published attributions, these types of wares were surely European in origin and they were found up-and-down the American east coast. She continued to say that the only production that happened at the Burpee Pottery revolved around country-style utilitarian red earthenware.
It's my assumption that this attribution began with this 1925 loan exhibition in Boston. It's a mistaken attribution that is still sometimes used today. I don't know how Mrs. William Whitman, Jr. developed this attribution; however, I'm glad that it is documented in this catalog a year before it was published in Spargo's book in 1926 - this is a published attribution that has puzzled and misled auction houses, collectors, dealers, museums - and, even scholars ever since. I believe that it is Spargo's book that is cited today when this attribution is used.
I've always wondered how this attribution came to fruition - and, thankfully, Samuel Herrup owns the published proof of where this attribution probably developed in 1925.
Stoneware Attributed to the Burpee Pottery in Boscowan, NH
They Were on Loan at the Exhibition in Boston in 1925
They Were Owned by Mrs. William Whitman, Jr.
This is the Picture from John Spargo's Book 'Early American Pottery and China'
These Objects Were Actually Made in Europe
Stoneware Attributed to the Burpee Pottery in Boscowan, NH
This was on Loan at the Exhibition in Boston in 1925
It Was Owned by Mrs. William Whitman, Jr.
This is the Picture from John Spargo's Book 'Early American Pottery and China'
This Stoneware Churn was Actually Made in Europe
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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