Description:
English Castleford-type felspathic stoneware sugar bowl or sucrier (part of a teaset with the cream jug and teapot) with cover and molded and relief decoration and blue trim.The set, which was bought from Mrs. J. Douglas Abercrombie, came with a hand-written note: "Grandmothers Ambercrombie's / China / Old Wedgwood Tea Set 3 pieces / Green edge Sauce boat. [see HD 86.021] / Martha McCullough / wife of Isaac Abercrombie." In 1742, Robert Abercrombie (1712-1786) emigrated from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Pelham, Massachusetts; he and his wife, Margaret Stevenson Abercrombie (d.1765), had 10 children; their son, Isaac Abercrombie (1759-1847) married Martha McCullough (1768-1837) in 1790, and they moved from Pelham to the Cheapside section of Deerfield (now in Greenfield) about 1830. Their son, Asiel Abercrombie (1807-1874), married Elizabeth Brooks Fuller (1817-1906), the daughter of Aaron Fuller (1786-1859) and his first wife, Elizabeth Hill Fuller (d.1818) of Deerfield, in 1845. Asiel and Elizabeth Abercrombie had three children who lived: Robert (b.1846), William Hyslop (1851-1940), and Hattie Fuller (1860-1955); only Robert married - Ellen Margaret Crawford in 1873. Robert and Ellen's son, James Douglas Abercrombie (b.1878) was the father of James Douglas Abercrombie (1913-1978), husband of the donor. The Castleford Pottery was run by David Dunderdale & Co., operating from 1790 to 1821 in Castleford, about 15 miles from Leeds in Yorkshire; the pottery produced a range of wares in creamware, black basalt, and white feldspathic stoneware. Although many factories, such as the Sowter and Company pottery (1800-late 1820s) of Mexborough, Yorkshire, and the Chetham and Woolley site (c.1795-c.1820), Wedgwood, and the Davenport Pottery (1794-1887) in Staffordshire, made similar feldspathic stoneware wares, the term 'Castleford' is now used generically to described a wide range of feldspathic stoneware, silver-shaped tea wares, jugs, and similar objects that are slip-cast with relief-molded decoration such as this example. The slightly domed cover has a flattened flower finial topped in blue over a interlaced ovals and swirled scrolls. The bowl has a shaped rim with a band of flowers; over a sloped shoulder decorated with interlaced ovals; over neoclassical figures and two simulated carrying handles outlined in blue; and swirled scrolls around the tapered flat base. 1/5/07, it was noticed that there is a cracked piece on the sugar bowl that needs conservation.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+86.005.2 |
