EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: 19th Century Ancient Style Red Earthenware Urn Recently Found in a House in Malden, Mass.

Friday, May 19, 2023

19th Century Ancient Style Red Earthenware Urn Recently Found in a House in Malden, Mass.

This is a really cool and rare late nineteenth century Grecian style red earthenware urn that was just found in a house in Malden, Massachusetts, whereas the form of this urn matches shape 45 that was published in the 1877 catalog from the A.H. Hews Pottery in North Cambridge, Massachusetts. To my knowledge, this was a limited type of production from this company; the base is inscribed in pencil “5/50.” The painted decoration is early but not original to production.

Interestingly, though, this is only the second example of this type of production that I have ever seen from the Hews Pottery; the other example was published in a recent article I wrote for Antiques And The Arts Weekly and is privately owned today as part of a prominent private collection in Massachusetts.

According to the Hews Pottery catalog, "It is with pleasure we present this our second Catalogue of Antique Pottery. Although largely a copy of our first, it contains on the last three pages of cuts some twenty-two new patterns, all of which are very attractive. Our patterns are all nearly copies from ancient designs, and are very correct, we have spared no expense to make them the most perfect reproductions offered to the public; and having seen samples from most of the potteries manufacturing Antique Pottery, we can safely say there are none in the market as correct in shape and size as those we are offering.

We present in this addition one hundred and fifty-one different shapes, many of them in several sizes. Twenty patterns are exact copies from Dr. Schliemann's excavations on the supposed site of ancient Troy; they are correct in shape and size, having been taken from photographs of the originals; they will be marked S on the price list, to designate them.

Nos. 99, 118, 121, 124, 125, 126 and 129 are copies from the Cesnola collection, and were discovered by General Louis Palma de Cesnola in ancient tombs in Idalium Cyprus. They were supposed to be Phoenician manufacture, and extend back over a period of fifteen hundred years B.C."

For more about the Hews Pottery - see the research article I wrote for the March 17, 2023 issue of Antiques And The Arts Weekly, titled, The Abraham Hews Pottery of Weston & North Cambridge, Mass.: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2023/03/new-published-story-in-antiques-and.html

19th Century Ancient Style Red Earthenware Urn