EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: 19th Century Red Earthenware Crock Owned by the Livingston County Historical Society Museum

Thursday, December 19, 2019

19th Century Red Earthenware Crock Owned by the Livingston County Historical Society Museum

I wrote earlier this month that towards the end of each year, I try to go through all of my old pictures that I intended to write something about, but never did, and post an article about the objects that I photographed. This post is another example of that.

A research story that I have been working on for sometime which I hope will be published in a new national academic platform in 2020 is the story of the Mormon potter, Heber Kimball (1801-68) and his red earthenware and slipware production in western New York in the 1820s and early-1830s. I have been working on the project with the Museum of Church History in Salt Lake City, Utah, a prominent local private collector and some western New York museums. I feel this is an exciting story defining Kimball the potter instead of his well-documented life afterwards as a Mormon leader. This story is unlike any information previously published about him.

Nevertheless, while working with the Livingston County Historical Society Museum in Geneseo, New York, I came across this upstate New York crock, possibly made in western New York. The museum only owns a few pieces of red earthenware, one of which is a large vibrant colored ice cream cooler very likely made by Kimball. However, this crock lacks an attribution, but it does retain a history of local ownership. I studied this piece for a few minutes seeing that this is not a form I normally see from upstate New York living in New England. I suspect this form could also be mistaken for production in Pennsylvania.

Red Earthenware Crock Owned by the Livingston County Historical Society Museum