A Marblehead Pottery Earthenware Vase Recently Found in a Music Producer's Estate in West Roxbury, Mass.

This was an unexpected flea market find yesterday morning in the dark in Massachusetts, where a dealer showed up with a truck filled from a house he had just cleaned out occupied by a music producer in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. I quickly grabbed this hand-thrown circa 1910 blue glazed earthenware vase made at the Marblehead Pottery (active 1904-1936) in Massachusetts. The base is impressed with the company ship mark, although partially infilled with glaze. Related wares can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as during a temporary exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts a few years ago, when the Carolyn & Peter Lynch Collection was displayed. In fact, the Lynch's collection featured an identical vase on the bottom shelf in the exhibit where their Marblehead Pottery collection was displayed.

According to the MET, "The Marblehead Pottery started out as part of a therapeutic program at a clinic for women suffering from nervous disorders, founded by Dr. Henry J. Hall in 1905. Patients were to benefit from the practice of handwork in different media, but it was the pottery that was the longest lasting enterprise. Hall hired the young Arthur E. Baggs (1886-1947), a student of Charles F. Binns (1857-1934) at the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics at Alfred, to lead the ceramics operations in the coastal town. 

The therapeutic workshop for convalescing patients soon gave way to an independent pottery operated by Baggs. The predominant palette of the pottery tended toward grayed hues of green blue, and brown in soft, matte glazes in accord with the general tendencies of the Arts and Crafts style. The decorative motifs were often associated with images native to New England, and the designs adhered to the tenets of conventionalization then in vogue, with differing degrees of abstraction."

A Marblehead Pottery Earthenware Vase Recently Found in West Roxbury, Mass.

Early 20th Century Blue Glazed Earthenware Vase

Made at the Marblehead Pottery in Marblehead, Mass. 

Found Yesterday at a Massachusetts Flea Market

Although Recently Discovered During an Estate Clean Out in West Roxbury, Mass.

Circa 1910

Stands 4 1/4" Tall

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Another View of the Vase

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A View of the Interior

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A View of the Impressed Ship Mark which Has Been Partially Infilled with Glaze

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