By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — When the Red Wing Stoneware Company was founded in 1877 in Red Wing, Minnesota, the company only made stoneware like crocks and jugs. Red Wing's management figured the company had better make something else if it was going to stay in business, so it began producing art pottery and dinnerware. In 1936, the company changed its name to Red Wing Potteries, which it used until it closed in ’67. A gentleman named George RumRill, who was a designer but not a potter, is credited with...

Hausmaler Decoration on Fayence and Porcelain

By Kurt M. Semon — This is a province of Germanic art not known to many of us. If there are no awe inspiring peaks and no big rushing streams it is nevertheless a pleasant landscape. Of course hausmaler, literally house painters, are a far cry from the evil Adolf. They were home painters, individuals seeking realization of their artistic ambition and in most cases, added income. [caption id="attachment_5810" align="alignright" width="193" caption="Illustration I: Sometimes they were modest, underpaid...

Identifying China By Its Paste

By John Gibbons — Illogical though it may seem, few of the thousands of American china collectors know how to distinguish between hard- and soft-paste china. Yet the ability to make this distinction is probably of greater importance in recognizing kinds of china, especially in spotting spurious pieces, than a general knowledge of marks. All the most sought-after English and Continental porcelains, such as Chelsea, Derby, Meissen, and Sevres, have been copied again and again, and their marks forged so...

American Vogues in Porcelain Since Colonial Days

By John Gibbons — For the most part our colonial ancestors were accustomed to a simple and even frugal mode of life. But here and there along the eastern seaboard were large comfortable homes owned by well-to-do English families, either in the service of the Crown or attracted to America by the opportunity of acquiring large tracts of virgin land at a comparatively low price. Usually they brought their household effects with them as well as their notions as to the manner of life proper for country...

Oriental Lowestoft from Mexico

By Thomas Hamilton Ormsbee — When one sees a piece of Oriental Lowestoft or a China trade item, the clock turns back a century and a half or more. In the shadow of such an antique, the collector sees, mentally, a fast-sailing East India merchantman. Homeward bound from Canton, its course was down the China coast, through the narrow Straits of Malacca between those islands already the Dutch East Indies, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and northward to the home port in Europe or America. It...

Oriental Lowestoft

By Richmond Huntley — "A sett of large blue and white China with the badge of the Society of the Cincinnati if to be had, " wrote George Washington to his agent, Colonel Tench Tilghman, regarding the purchase of goods just arrived on the ship Pallas in 1785. This was one of several items which General Washington directed bought for his home on the Potomac. He referred to a bluish white porcelain, made and decorated in China for the western trade. In his day it was known as "East India china" and was...

Decorative Accessories of 18th Century English Porcelain

By Frank Stoner — Whilst much thought and attention has been given to the purely decorative figures and objects produced by the 18th-Century English porcelain factories, little study has been given to the many and varied accessories they manufactured, which have both a decorative and utility purpose even in these modern days. Perhaps a slight résumé of the history of the foremost English porcelain factories might be of some assistance to the student of the potter's art. The exact date when the...

The Three Periods of Oriental Lowestoft

By Stephen Decatur — Through sheer longevity and persistence, the term Oriental Lowestoft has become the designation for all Chinese porcelain made expressly for export. It covers a broad field and extends over two centuries and a half of time. Not only do the ramifications included under this all-embracing name seem endless but some of the pieces bear little outward resemblance to the type of porcelain commonly recognized as Oriental Lowestoft. Yet, after one has allowed for the inevitable exceptions to...

Exhibition of Cup Plates

By Ruth Webb Lee — It is always a matter of pleasure to collectors, who visit antiques shows, to find the commercial aspect made somewhat less obtrusive by the presence of educational exhibits. The managers of the larger shows have given consideration to this phase of their business, off and on, during the past few years. Last year the Antiques Exhibition held at the Y.M.C.A. at Morristown, New Jersey, devoted a room to special loan exhibits. These included Lacy Sandwich glass miniature Blown Molded or...

Ceramics Used in America From 1830 to 1859

By John Meredith Graham, II — In the 19th century affluent Americans enjoyed ready access to the ceramic markets of the world. The result was the greatest known importation of various wares. Ceramic tastes of the time were influenced in general by three dominating trends which contended with one another for supremacy: the classic revival, the Gothic revival and the baroque. Nationalism asserted itself in all countries, and in France under Louis Philippe, the period of Louis XV was selected as the basis of a new...

English Portraiture in Ceramics

By Waldo Hopkins — Although English artists began working very early in other media, the making of portrait busts and statues in ceramics lagged far behind. But once these potter-sculptors began to "hold the mirror up to nature," what they made formed one of the most important achievements in the history of English pottery. They had two sources of inspiration, the bronze, marble, and terra-cotta works of 17th-Century English and Continental sculptors, and the ceramic figures that found their way into...

Bowes Curator Howard Coutts on Meissen, Staffordshire, and Sèvres

By Maribeth Keane — I’m the curator of the ceramics bit of the Bowes Museum. It’s a big museum with 30 galleries of which three or four are devoted to ceramics alone. Within Britain, it’s got one of the biggest and most expensive groups for people to see. We have about 5,000 or so pieces in the collection. We’re not sure exactly. It’s all registered, but of course we get tea sets registered under one number, so I think in total it’s about 5,000. I’ve collected both cups and saucers over the years, which...