Back in the fall of 2024, Pook & Pook Auctions in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, sold the Walter and Jeannette Smith Collection of Gettysburg. A highlight of the sale was an outstanding multicolor, slip-decorated red earthenware pitcher, which brought $17,500 from a private collector. This piece appears closely related to simpler decorated pitchers from the Bristol County, Massachusetts area: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2024/09/the-walter-and-jeannette-smith.html.
Interestingly, a related jug is also known that shares stylistic ties with Bristol County manufacturing, though its specific maker remains unidentified. Dozens of Quaker potters from various families were employed in this region throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Over the last few years, I have compiled photographs of a small group of these jugs, all of which reside in private New England collections. While the green-glazed example is a Bristol County type, the others share identical traits: the same incised decoration, same double rim, similar handle form and placement, same terminal finger impression at the base of the handle, and rounded footed bases. Ultimately, it is the striking diversity of their glaze colors that makes this group so appealing. All of these objects will also be illustrated in my forthcoming two-volume, 1,900 plus page, tenth book, titled, An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem, Massachusetts.
Note: For more information about production in southern Massachusetts - see my fifth book, titled, A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod: https://historicbeverly.net/product/a-celebrated-industry-the-historic-wares-of-southeastern-massachusetts-bristol-county-and-cape-cod/.
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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