EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Rare 19th Century Red Earthenware Ram that was Discovered a Few Years Ago in Brimfield, Massachusetts

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

A Rare 19th Century Red Earthenware Ram that was Discovered a Few Years Ago in Brimfield, Massachusetts

A few years ago, I discovered an unusual nineteenth-century red earthenware figure in the form of a ram with a bowl on its back in one of the fields at the antique shows in Brimfield, Massachusetts. The dealer told me that he found it during a house clean out in Connecticut. I asked if he knew any further information (i.e. country of origin, age, maker, etc.) about the object, but he said all he knew about the figure was the location that it was found.

I have never been fully confident to say where this object was made outside of an American-made product, but someone did suggest (to me) soon after I discovered it that it may have been produced in Pennsylvania during the second-half of the nineteenth-century. This also must have been an 'end-of-the-day' type object since it does not appear like it would have been an object that was regularly produced as part of a potter's traditional output.

Nevertheless, I recently visited an antique show in Union, Maine, where an antiques dealer had brought a small late-nineteenth-century sewer tile dog to the show, which was decorated with a similar bowl on its back. Presumably, these bowls may have been used as a salt, but there could have been other uses, as well.

The dealer told me that she thought the sewer tile dog was likely made in Ohio; although, she said that it could have been produced in western Pennsylvania or somewhere else in the Midwest, too.

Based on the form (the bowl) of the sewer tile dog, I would like to believe that both of the following objects are related by location, which may include a certain region (i.e. Mid-Atlantic or Midwest) or a specific state, such as an Ohio or western Pennsylvania manufacturer.

Sewer Tile Dog with Bowl