EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Two Painted 19th Century Red Earthenware Vases from the C.A. Lawrence Pottery in Beverly, Mass.

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Two Painted 19th Century Red Earthenware Vases from the C.A. Lawrence Pottery in Beverly, Mass.

This is a follow-up story to an article I posted to this website earlier this week, titled, A Pair of 19th Century Painted Red Earthenware Vases Likely from Beverly, Mass. that Just Sold on eBay: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2024/07/a-pair-of-19th-century-painted-red.html.

These are great! This pair of nineteenth century painted red earthenware vases were just found together in an estate in New Jersey, and the decoration is very similar to a larger object made at the Charles A. Lawrence (1829-1904) Pottery in Beverly, Mass. that is owned today by Historic Beverly. Interestingly, until I saw these vases, the object owned by Historic Beverly was the only one like it that was known to exist.

This artwork likely represents Marblehead artist Thomas Pitman (1848-1923), who was employed at the pottery business as a decorator. I also suspect that the decoration is inspired after Japanese design, a subject that Lawrence devoted some time to in the late 1800s. Japanese porcelain, along with artifacts like textiles, fans and metalwork, inspired some of the designs. This is also a subject that I wrote about in my first book, titled, The Beverly Pottery: The Wares of Charles A. Lawrence: https://historicbeverly.net/product/the-beverly-pottery-the-wares-of-charles-a-lawrence/.

This movement, known as Japonisme really began in Europe and the United States in the 1870s, whereas this is an excerpt from the Beverly book: "Lawrence also received high praise from Professor Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925) in the winter of 1892, a few years after he had arrived home from Japan. Professor Morse was a zoologist and orientalist. He authored some books while living in Japan in the late-1870s and 1880s. When he finally returned home, he brought with him a collection of clay samples and ceramics, as well as other art and artifacts now owned by the Peabody Essex Museum. According to the Beverly Citizen, “In a lecture on Japanese pottery at Plummer Hall in Salem, Professor E.S. Morse said $9,000,000 are spent each year for foreign pottery by the people of this country, and this might just as well be made at home, if our potters could be educated up to it. In this connection, Professor Morse spoke in high praise of the Beverly pottery of Charles A. Lawrence." I suspect that these vases are the types of object Morse was referencing during his talk.

Furthermore, the Peabody Essex Museum owns wonderful Japanese collections and a beautiful Japanese garden, no doubt due, in large part, to the advocacy of its long-term director, Edward Sylvester Morse. Morse was also responsible, in a way, for another tangible symbol of the Salem-Japan connection: the so-called “Japanese House” on Laurel Street in Salem.

Interestingly, there was even a “Japan corner” in the late 1800s and early 1900s at the department store Almy's, Bigelow and Washburn, which operated on Essex Street in downtown Salem from 1862 to 1985. The "corner" was overseen by Mitsuki Bunko, who had a gallery in Boston and supplied the area's influential collectors with Japanese objects.

The 1880s was also when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City began collecting Japanese decorative objects, including ceramics. Back then the collection was described as, "Just a small, eclectic array of Japanese decorative arts."

Nevertheless, this fascination with everything Japonisme was a certainly a subject that Charles Lawrence took notice of with his production in neighboring Beverly, especially in the 1880s and 1890s, and I believe these vases are directly related to all of this.

Red Earthenware Vases from the C.A. Lawrence Pottery in Beverly, Mass.