EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Great 18th or Early 19th Century Red Earthenware Double-Handled Pot

Thursday, September 14, 2023

A Great 18th or Early 19th Century Red Earthenware Double-Handled Pot

It is quite an honor to own this large double handled red earthenware pot with its original lid that I acquired last Friday while visiting the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. In fact, it is a great survivor, whereas I learned about this object over ten years ago, after seeing it in the private collection of Sheffield, Massachusetts antiques dealer Sam Herrup, who had also owned it for many years before I had seen it. And prior to that, it was owned in Burlington, Connecticut by Peter Pellettieri.

Furthermore, the thought is that this object may have been made by Peter Clark (1743-1826) in Braintree, Massachusetts in the 1760s, and it is perhaps the only piece of pottery that can be associated with Clark's production in Braintree today (otherwise at one of Clark's businesses in Lyndeborough or Francistown, New Hampshire.

Interestingly, there are a few other objects known thought to have possibly been made by Clark in Braintree, but they may have also been made by Clark in Lyndeborough, New Hampshire after 1775, such as jars owned by the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord. But if this jar was not made by Clark, then another early coastal Massachusetts potter, although it will also be illustrated in my forthcoming 576-page eighth book, titled, An Influential Family of Early Potters: The Clarks of New Hampshire and Related Businesses.

Additionally, what also strikes me about this object is the shape of the pot, which is somewhat similar to a double-handled slip-decorated red earthenware pot that showed up at an auction in Maine almost ten years ago. This pot was later accurately attributed to the Parker Pottery in Charlestown, Massachusetts, circa 1720s-1750s, and later went on to be on the cover of my third book, titled, The Dawn of Independence, the Death of an Industry: The Pottery of Charlestown, Massachusetts. That pot is now privately owned, but it will likely at some point be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

18th or Early 19th Century Red Earthenware Double-Handled Pot