While visiting the Old York Historical Society in Maine a few weeks ago, I learned about a fascinating connection that Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) had with a few different vacation homes in York. This is a story that I had never heard before, whereas I also learned about a red earthenware tiled inkwell in the museum's collection that was made at Mercer's Moravian Pottery & Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, which retains a history of local ownership since it was originally manufactured.
Interestingly, not a lot of pottery made at Mercer's factory is found today outside of a museum setting or a private collection, although an inscribed and script decorated cup recently sold on eBay that was impressed on the bottom, "NATIONAL / ARTS CLUB / NEW YORK:" https://www.ebay.com/itm/235673122672. This is a copy of a matching original object is displayed in the storage area of the Americana Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where the museum identifies the inscription, as reading, "Essen ist von Leib und Leben... ist auch gu daruben, 1793 [Food is a matter of life and limb.. and also tastes good]" : https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/2761.
Nevertheless, the Maine story will hopefully be published at some point, but I also wanted to share that some of the floors at the Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1927) Museum in Boston are constructed from tiles made at Mercer's factory. This is a subject that is known, but it is still worth sharing, seeing that these tiles also influenced how tiles were used elsewhere in New England in the early 1900s.
According to the museum and a letter that Mercer wrote to Isabella Stewart in 1902, "Isabella’s vision for the tiles included shine. Mercer wrote to her with detailed instructions on how to maintain the tiles after observing the oiling practices at the Museo Nazionale—modern day Museo Nazionale del Bargello—in Florence (Italy). “Here is the receipt of the Museo Nazionale for a very beautiful oil gloss on their brick pavements…. I think it must take some time to get the beautiful rich gloss & though the man said a year I don't think he was there in 1870 when the floor was laid. It may take longer. But at all events with the oil & sawdust the floor is always improving. Only don't expect to get the rich old meerschaum gloss too quickly.”
Among some of the other decorative pieces displayed at the museum is a cast iron fire back that Mercer gave Gardner in the early twentieth century, along with other objects, such as an "Avalon" tile that he gifted Gardner in June of 1923: https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/11470.
Furthermore, among the tiles purchased by Gardner was an order dated December 9, 1901 for $551, which amounted to about 4,000 tiles.
Another significant location where Mercer's tiles are found in New England is Harbour Court at the New York Yacht Club in Newport, Rhode Island. The Renaissance Norman-style mansion was completed in 1906 for the John Nicholas Brown (1861-1900) family. Although, the inspiration for the tiles used in Newport was based off of those that were created in Boston by Gardner.
It was written nearly a decade ago by Elaine Lembo in a grant funded restoration project for the New York Yacht Club, titled, A Meeting of Great Minds: The Moravian Tiles of Harbour Court,"Sometime between Brown’s death and 1905, Mrs. Brown visited Isabella Stewart Gardner of Boston, and she fancied the artistic sense of her friend, a globe-trotting art collector and philanthropist. “Mrs. Brown has seen Mrs. Gardner’s floors and likes them,” wrote Frederic Allen Whiting of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston.
To mimic Gardner’s terracotta Moravian tile floor in Newport would cost $1.25 a foot, and a sketch was requested of Henry Chapman Mercer, the potter and archaeologist who founded the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in 1899 in Pennsylvania, ultimately producing 5,000 handmade tile molds."
With all of this said - are there any other places in New England where Mercer's tiles were used?
Note: For more information about Henry Chapman Mercer - see two stories that I posted to this website in 2018 --
1) Henry Chapman Mercer's Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania
2) Henry Chapman Mercer's Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Tiles Made at Henry Chapman Mercer's Tile Works in Pennsylvania
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