EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Rare 19th Century Red Earthenware Jar Recently Found in a House in Bath, Maine

Monday, March 21, 2016

A Rare 19th Century Red Earthenware Jar Recently Found in a House in Bath, Maine

According to 'The Middletown Press,' "The 43rd Annual Connecticut Spring Antiques Show, "An American Treasure Trove," returned to the landmark Hartford, Connecticut Armory this past weekend (March 19-20, 2016). The Haddam, Connecticut Historical Society, hosted the show, which was joined by some of the nation's most respected antique dealers.

Long known and admired for its focus on pre-1840 American furniture and decorative objects, the show featured over 60 dealers from New England and nationally. This year, the show added folk art to compliment early American pieces and accessories, to attract a larger audience and provide a wider selection of outstanding and unique objects.

The show also featured educational programs that seemed to have interested the majority of the attendees."

I did attend the show last weekend to pick up a piece of early-nineteenth-century red earthenware that Falmouth, Massachusetts antiques dealer, Hilary Nolan had recently picked from a house in Bath, Maine. The jar is decorated with wavy and straight line incised decoration, which was accomplished by the potter as the object turned on the potter's wheel.

This type of decoration is commonly attributed to Essex County, Massachusetts today; however, similar decoration was also accomplished at the Peter Clark Pottery in Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, the Burpee family pottery in Boscowan, New Hampshire and in other parts of New Hampshire such as Moultonboro, New Hampshire. Although, it was also accomplished elsewhere in New England, as well.

Incised decoration is not quite an attributable characteristic to a single region or area in New England, but there are certain characteristics found in this technique that can narrow down the possible places of where an object could have been produced.

The width and depth of the tool that was used to accomplish this jar's incising suggests an Essex County potter (to me), but an argument could also be made for central New Hampshire.

This type of decoration is also extremely rare to find today on New England-made objects - and, it should be understandable, too that I share a strong interest in any such object when it becomes available in the marketplace. The last time that I saw a New England-made object (which was decorated with this type of incising) appear in the national antique marketplace was more-than three-years ago. It was an example that sold at Crocker Farm in Sparks, Maryland - and, that object now resides in my private collection today.

Personally, I would compare this type of decoration to incised or stamped eighteenth or nineteenth-century American-made stoneware, which is highly-desired by collectors, museums and dealers today. I honestly believe that this type of decoration, which is rarely found on New England-made red earthenware is actually rarer than incised or stamped stoneware today. I also believe that this type of decoration needs more appreciation when it is found on New England-made red earthenware objects from the nineteenth-century - it really shows a potter's attempt to add more decoration to a form that goes beyond glaze alone.

Below, I have shown two early-nineteenth-century objects that exhibit a similar-type of incised decoration. They are both attributed to Essex County, Massachusetts - they were also both found in Salem, Massachusetts. The first example is owned by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and the second example is owned by the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.