Description:
"Fancy Rockingham" pitcher in the Sexigon pattern, a six-sided shape, with a curved pouring spout and D-shaped handle covered with a brown slip in clear glaze on an earthenware body, which is impressed on the exterior center, unglazed base, "NORTON & FENTON, / East Bennington, Vt." The simplicity and wide surfaces of the panels on these pitchers gave the modellers great flexibility in creating designs, allowing for the repetition of decorative elements on the repeated curved surfaces. The Rockingham name was taken from the estate of the Marquis of Rockingham in Yorkshire, England, where potters created household wares with a characteristic lustrous mottled brown glaze from 1757 to 1842. In the strictest interpretation of the word, "Rockingham" is a brown glaze colored by the addition of manganese; and "Fancy" refers to ornamented objects, embossed with relief-molded decoration or narrative designs achieved by sprig molding each piece or by press-molding the entire body. English potters, modelers, and designers came to America through the 1820s and 1830s, often through NYC, working first in the Jersey City potteries, and later many moving along the east coast and to the mid-west. This form of pitcher was produced by a master Staffordshire potter, Scottish-born David Henderson (c.1793-1845), who gained his reputation for introducing English molded pottery making in the United States. This new method made possible the casting of stoneware, rockingham, and yellow ware pieces in molds, instead of shaping each piece by hand on the potter’s wheel, which speeded production and made possible the relief decoration so popular during the Victorian era in both ceramics and glass. In 1828, David Henderson, with his brother Joseph, bought the Jersey Porcelain & Earthenware Company in Jersey City, NJ; named the company D & J Henderson; and then incorporated and renamed it the American Pottery Manufacturing Company in 1833. Henderson first produced this Rockingham glaze in 1829, described as 'Flint Ware both embossed and plain,' which the "New York Commercial Advertiser" called "elegant pitchers . . . in a new style [which] if not too cheap will be accounted handsome." In October 1842, Julius Norton (1809-1861) took his brother-in-law, Christopher W. Fenton (1806-1865), into partnership at the Norton pottery, where they experimented with new clay bodies, glazes and production techniques. The 1846 price list of the Norton & Fenton pottery lists "Fancy Pitchers" as a separate category from other wares. Their partnership dissolved in 1847 when Julius resumed full-time production of stoneware, and Fenton established his own pottery, the United States Pottery, continuing to produce new wares and experiment with porcelain. The pitcher is decorated with relief-molded floral sprays in each of the four panels around the concave neck, and two smaller floral sprays on the two sides of the tapered pouring lip; and in the six large panels around the bulging sides which taper to a flared foot.
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