EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: The 1826-1838 Tucker Porcelain Factory in Philadelphia

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

The 1826-1838 Tucker Porcelain Factory in Philadelphia

The desire to produce American-made porcelain dates as far back as the 1730s, and Philadelphia was at the center of this production when Bonnin & Morris successfully manufactured porcelain in the early-1770s. The Bonnin & Morris forms include small baskets, sauceboats, pickle dishes and pickle stands, some of which were displayed in an exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2008 and more recently at the Museum of the American Revolution. Although, about 50-years later, Philadelphia made another statement in the domestic porcelain market when the Tucker porcelain factory was established.

According to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Tucker factory was among the first successful porcelain manufactories in the United States. Following on other short-lived successes in New York City and New Jersey, William Ellis Tucker (1800-1832) established his porcelain manufactory in Philadelphia in 1826 at Center Square, the site of Philadelphia's current City Hall.

William Tucker died in 1830, and thereafter his brother Thomas Tucker (1812-1890) oversaw the day-to-day operations and design, while investors, in particular Judge Joseph Hemphill (1770-1842) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, were able to provide the funds necessary to produce the high-quality porcelain that rivaled popular English, French, German, and Italian porcelain of the same date. The factory closed in 1838.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has the largest Tucker porcelain collection in the world, with over 500 pieces. The objects range from monumental vases and complete dinner sets to small, personal mementoes of the Tucker family and Thomas Tucker's coveted pattern and recipe books recording factory production from 1832 to 1838."

While visiting Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I made it a priority to also see the collection of Tucker porcelain currently on view at the Chester County Historical Society. The forms displayed include various teapots, cups & saucers, a creamer, a sugar bowl and plates.

According to the historical society, "The primary ingredient in porcelain, a white clay called kaolin, was quarried in New Garden Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania," located about 40-miles southwest of Philadelphia along the Pennsylvania-Delaware border.

"But while Tucker porcelain graced the front rooms of many well-to-do families on the east coast, the company could not compete with the lower-priced imports from Europe and China."

Nonetheless, while the Tuckers may not have found the same amount of success as some of the porcelain factories that came after them in the nineteenth century, they certainly helped lay the groundwork for those porcelain factories that opened in Vermont, South Carolina, New York and New Jersey in the 1840s and 1850s.

Aside from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Chester County Historical Society, Tucker porcelain is displayed at some of America's most prestigious museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Tucker Porcelain Currently on Display at the Chester County Historical Society