EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Wonderful Red Earthenware Pitcher Acquired Today at a Nan Gurley Antique Show in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Sunday, March 6, 2016

A Wonderful Red Earthenware Pitcher Acquired Today at a Nan Gurley Antique Show in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

I was fortunate to purchase a wonderful black-glazed red earthenware pitcher today at a Nan Gurley Antique Show in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. These pictures really do not serve this object justice for how it actually appears in-hand. This is a wonderfully-made pitcher.

The pitcher is attributed to coastal Massachusetts during the circa 1770-1820 period. There is a very-good possibility that it was made in the southeastern Massachusetts potter's industry located in the communities to the west of New Bedford, Massachusetts along the Taunton River. The underlying glaze found on part of belly's base is a characteristic of wares that were made in this region.

Although, written faintly in pencil, on the base, it reads, "160-73 / Attributed Durham CT / DURHAM." (Note: the writing does not photograph very-well.)

Durham is a former eighteenth and nineteenth-century farming village in Middlesex County, Connecticut located near the Connecticut River. It is also located to the northeast of New Haven, Connecticut, and just to the north of the Atlantic Ocean. The New Haven-area was a major region for stoneware production in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries; however, there is not a lot of red earthenware properly attributed to the New Haven-area today.

Unfortunately, there is no documented red earthenware potter known in Durham, Connecticut today. I have been unsuccessful in finding any evidence that supports any type of pottery production in Durham. Rather, my guess is that this product may have been originally discovered in Durham, but that does not mean it was made in Durham.

Eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century Massachusetts potters are known to have shipped their products elsewhere in New England. It's not surprising, either that Massachusetts-made products have been discovered in early contexts in Connecticut dating back decades. For example, Massachusetts author, Lura Woodside Watkins uncovered a variety of products made to the south of Boston in Connecticut in the 1930's and the 1940's - some of these objects are pictured in her important book, 'Early New England Potters and Their Wares.' These objects are owned by the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts today.