EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Monumental 19th Century Bean Pot that was Likely Used for Advertising which Appeared this Week in Brimfield, Massachusetts

Thursday, September 7, 2017

A Monumental 19th Century Bean Pot that was Likely Used for Advertising which Appeared this Week in Brimfield, Massachusetts

I wrote an article about the Charles A. Lawrence Pottery in Beverly, Massachusetts, circa 1866-1906, which was published in the January 2014 edition of the New England Antiques Journal. I included a picture of a monumental bean pot in that article that was made at the C.A. Lawrence Pottery and owned today by the Beverly Historical Society. The bean pot was carefully stamped, "PRESENTED TO THE / FIRST MAYOR OF BEVERLY / FROM THE BEVERLY POTTERY / JAN. 1895."

Each stamped letter was also carefully glazed and the interior of the pot was decorated with a clear lead glaze that appeared orange.

Yesterday, I was surprised to see a related monumental bean pot while walking around the fields at the antique shows in Brimfield, Massachusetts. The pot was sitting on a table at the Hertan's Antique Show in the booth of Daniel and Karen Olson, who are longtime antique dealers from Newburgh, New York. They told me that the pot was included in a large group of stoneware that they had recently acquired privately in upstate New York.

Prominently stamped across the front of this pot are the words, "LOUIS E. MERRY / BOSTON BAKED BEANS / 39 PRINCE STREET."

Thanks to Falmouth, Massachusetts antiques dealer, Paulette Nolan, it was bought to my attention this morning that Mr. Merry was likely a baker working at 39 Prince Street in Boston's North End neighborhood. It would be my guess that this object may have once sat in the window of this bakery.

I should also note that until yesterday, I had thought that the pot owned by the Beverly Historical Society was the only monumental bean pot made at the Beverly Pottery; however, that does not appear to be the case, anymore. There are also two smaller stamped bean pots with merchant information owned by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Note: Here is a link to an article that I posted earlier this year, which shows a great stamped pot from the Charles A. Lawrence Pottery in Beverly, Massachusetts that I found a few years ago in Salem, Massachusetts. The basic form of this object is related to these monumental bean pots.

Pot Owned by Beverly, Mass. Historical Society