While out and about in New England over the weekend, I came across this early twentieth century hanging red earthenware flowerpot with an attached saucer and a flattened backside, whereas the hanger or hook on this pot reminds me of red earthenware wall pockets made in Strasburg, Virginia in the late 1800s.
In fact, I published a smaller version of this hanging flowerpot with a black glaze in my second book, The Moses B. Paige Pottery: The Last of the Peabody Potteries, which retained a history of ownership in an old house in Wilmington, Massachusetts. The construction and shape of that flowerpot led me to believe that it was possibly made at the Paige Pottery, circa 1900-1930 or so
Nonetheless, the turquoise glaze on this pot also reminds me of Italian faience made in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, and it just so happens that Paige employed two migrant Italian potters in the 1900s, who produced some of the glazes that were used at the pottery. One example of these types of glazes is a pitcher owned by Historic New England that was made in 1926, and other examples of these glazes can be found in the collection of the Peabody Historical Society.
According to Massachusetts author Lura Woodside Watkins (1897-1982) who visited the Paige Pottery when it was still in operation and met the Paoluccis before publishing her landmark book in 1950, Early New England Potters and Their Wares: "Two Italians, Ermano and Luigi Paolucci, attempted to throw pots and to run the kiln, but they had not enough skill to do excellent hand work and they found machine methods unprofitable in competition with the great modern factories. They nevertheless turned out a number of interesting things in Italian style. These were principally pitchers and large deep dishes, tin-enameled, and painted in gay floral designs. They also succeeded in producing some colored glazes, such as a soft rose color, on a redware body."
A 20th Century Turquoise Glazed Red Earthenware Flowerpot
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