EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Fascinating Relationship Found with Early American Glass and Pottery

Friday, February 7, 2020

A Fascinating Relationship Found with Early American Glass and Pottery

As promised, here is the nineteenth century red earthenware open salt that I wrote about this week, which I acquired from the longtime collection of William Flowers, who owns Old South Jersey Glass & Antiques. He told me that he has owned it for many years.

While creating this object, the potter modeled it after a salt manufactured about 1820 at the New England Glass Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The red earthenware base even retains the embossed mark from the glass salt, which reads, "N.E. Glass Company Boston." The design shown on the front and back of the salt is a cornucopia basket overflowing with fruit, while the sides are decorated with a flower and leaves.

The following pictures illustrate both the pottery and glass example of this form, and I want to note that the red earthenware salt is slightly smaller and the sides are somewhat thinner, showing how it was made from a mold taken directly from a glass example.

There are other variations known where American potters copied glass forms, but this is the only example that I know about that retains a mark from the glass manufacturer. As I wrote earlier this week, "In the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass in New York and the New Bedford Glass Museum in Massachusetts are a small group of examples of red earthenware forms, where nineteenth century New England potters modeled their production after popular styles of glass, also made in New England."

It was also pointed out to me this week by Benny Kreiner that Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates has recently sold a related piece at auction in Mount Crawford, Virginia, and Pennsylvania collector, Jeff Herb said that Winterthur owns an example in Delaware, which is very similar to this form. But to my knowledge, I have not seen another marked example that really demonstrates a fascinating relationship found with early American glass and American potters. Although, this was not exclusive to American production, either.

19th Century Red Earthenware Open Salt