EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: The A.H. Hews "Antique Pottery" Catalog Published in 1877 in North Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thursday, September 13, 2018

The A.H. Hews "Antique Pottery" Catalog Published in 1877 in North Cambridge, Massachusetts

I have a great interest in Grecian type wares manufactured in America, beginning in the early 1870s and afterwards. The original wares made thousands of years ago are a style of pottery that I have always been drawn to, which is probably a result of admiring these wares at some of the museums I have visited, such as Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The collection of Roman artifacts displayed at both of these museums are far beyond impressive.

However, the Grecian pottery or "antique pottery," like the nineteenth century New England potters used to call it, is a style of production that is among my favorite types produced in America. But it is also difficult to find today seeing that a good amount of this production resides in museums. It also wasn't necessarily produced in huge amounts - although, it was certainly a subject of great interest for such potters as Charles A. Lawrence in Beverly, Massachusetts, Hugh Robertson in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Russel Crook in South Lincoln, Massachusetts, the Portland Stoneware Company in Maine, the Kitson Pottery in North Bridgton, Maine, the Merrimac Pottery Company in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the Abraham Hews Pottery in North Cambridge, Massachusetts and the John Farmer Clark Pottery in Concord, New Hampshire, among other potters, as well.

Some of this production is also difficult to identify; not a lot of it is marked, and in some cases it was manufactured by traditional utilitarian red earthenware potters who rarely marked any object. But there are a few catalogs known, like a 1905 catalog from the Merrimac Pottery Company, which illustrates the company's Grecian style garden wares. I'm also only aware of two Merrimac catalogs in existence - one is owned by the Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library in Salem, Massachusetts and the other is currently owned privately.

Nevertheless, I was thrilled yesterday to acquire a 36 page catalog published in 1877 by the A.H. Hews Pottery in North Cambridge, highlighting the company's ancient brand of pottery. I've seen this catalog before in a prominent private collection in the Boston area, and with a few book dealers, but otherwise it is difficult to find today. The Library of Congress also owns one of the known catalogs in Washington, D.C.

Interestingly, a friend was able to identify a rare piece of Hews Pottery Grecian ware earlier this year because of this booklet; whereas, the object had been improperly cataloged by an auction house. They were able to match the form and mark impressed on the base to what the Hews Pottery illustrated.

I'm also fascinated with the competitive angle taken in this catalog, where the Hews Pottery claims its products are superior to its counterparts made elsewhere, presumably in the Boston market (ie. Beverly and Chelsea).

According to the A.H. Hews Pottery, "It is with pleasure we present this our second Catalogue of Antique Pottery. Although largely a copy of our first, it contains on the last three pages of cuts some twenty-two new patterns, all of which are very attractive. Our patterns are all nearly copies from ancient designs, and are very correct, we have spared no expense to make them the most perfect reproductions offered to the public; and having seen samples from most of the potteries manufacturing Antique Pottery, we can safely say there are none in the market as correct in shape and size as those we are offering.

We present in this addition one hundred and fifty-one different shapes, many of them in several sizes. Twenty patterns are exact copies from Dr. Schliemann's excavations on the supposed site of ancient Troy; they are correct in shape and size, having been taken from photographs of the originals; they will be marked S on the price list, to designate them.

Nos. 99, 118, 121, 124, 125, 126 and 129 are copies from the Cesnola collection, and were discovered by General Louis Palma de Cesnola in ancient tombs in Idalium Cyprus. They were supposed to be Phoenician manufacture, and extend back over a period of fifteen hundred years B.C."

A.H. Hews Antique Pottery Catalog from 1877