My love for American stoneware

 

Impossible to say which of all the antiques and collectibles that have passed through my hands and spent time in my dwellings over decades is my favorite. I love them all. Going back almost 50 years when early Americana captured my fancy, I was enamored of pieces that had escaped stripping and refinishing. For many things, like furniture, boxes, and splint baskets, that meant they were paint decorated. Swoon. From the beginning I have loved what are called by various names—Early American, Americana, Primitive, American Country. Collections have come and gone, and now living in New Mexico for these many years, my interests have centered around American Indian and New Mexico Hispanic work. Yet, there is a lingering of my collecting past—American stoneware. 

And much more that lingers, including quilts, splint baskets of Anglo American production, and more more more. All of these pieces of stoneware pictured here have lived out in an open shed in my “back 40” for the last five years, but I’ve decided it’s time they come inside.

Only two of these utilitarian stoneware objects is marked, a one-gallon jug from J. and E. Norton Bennington Vermont, made between 1850-1859. A small churn or storage jar from J. D. (J. Dorris) Craven (1827-1895), made in the mid-19th century. The Craven family of potters has lived and worked in the Piedmont area of North Carolina since the 1770s. Of the others pictured here, the first jug on the left and the straight-sided crock on the far right are from the Meyer Pottery (Bexar County Texas, as in the greater San Antonio area), both from the late 19th century. Also pictured are two ovoid shaped jars (one double stamped “2” for the capacity) and a small alkaline-glazed jug that I have not identified as to origin, although all three are likely of Southern origin.