I recently acquired this hand-thrown likely turn of the twentieth century (or a little later) oxblood red glazed stoneware vase, where the glaze also includes some blue and a lighter shade of red beneath the darker red. The vase was discovered not too long ago in an antiques collector's estate sale near Spokane, Washington. And while I am not positive where this object was made in America, it closely resembles stoneware vases adorned with experimental glazes made by Hugh Robertson (1844-1908) in Chelsea and Dedham, Massachusetts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Such vibrant red glazes, often found on simple forms, were inspired by Asian porcelains, widely accessible to an American market for the first time in the late nineteenth century. As a result, American potters produced their own red glazes, often with other colors, such as seen on this vase, although Robertson was the first American potter to successfully produce an American version of an oxblood red glaze.
From Chelsea to Dedham, Robertson continued to pursue his passion for innovation, employing the grayish-white stoneware used for Dedham’s dinnerware to throw simple forms covered with bold combinations of colored and textured glazes. Dedham Pottery’s vases are larger, thicker, and heavier than their Chelsea predecessors, and simple, solid forms predominate.
Many of the vases that Robertson made in Dedham have varying combinations of red, green, blue, and white glazes, often with heavy drips descending to the base.
In 1898 a writer for the magazine Arts for America probably had such a vase in mind when he wrote of the Dedham Pottery: "In high-fire work the temperature ranges between 3,000 and 4,000 degrees, and the glaze applied to the top of the vase bubbles like pitch and runs down the sides, coating the surface. In this class of work it is impossible to have the effects twice alike, for at the different firings the chemical conditions vary."
These types of vases that Robertson made can be found in major art museums around the country, including the Robert A. Ellison, Jr. (1931-2021) Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, as well as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, some of which were previously owned by Massachusetts author Lura Woodside Watkins (1897-1982). But Robertson was not the only American potter producing this type of glazed stoneware.
However, I do want to emphasize that this particular vase is wheel thrown, which suggests to me that it is from the period of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The color of the clay is also the same color as found with stoneware produced by Robertson in Dedham. Nonetheless, though, I think this is a just an outstanding heavy vibrant multicolored glaze on a simple shape, and very much a representative example of art pottery produced in America.
An Outstanding Glazed Stoneware Vase Found at an Estate Sale Near Spokane, WA
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