Description:
Ovoid shaped 1 gallon, jug with rounded spout with incised line underneath it, and attached ribbed handle, thrown body, covered with a brown Albany slip glaze and then salt-glazed, flat base is slightly grooved, impressed mark under spout reads: "T. CRAFTS & CO./ NASHUA." (mark is partial) Condition is good with area of scorching (light red color) on the right hand side.Thomas Crafts (1781-1861) was one of the most successful potters in Whately, Massachusetts (a town just south of Deerfield). He started making glazed redware pottery in 1802, and later developed a succesful black-glazed redware teapot business. He switched to salt-glazed stoneware in 1833, and was active until 1848, turning over the business to his sons. In 1838, the Crafts family built the first of the only three stoneware manufactories in New Hampshire in Nashua on the Merrimack River. Thomas Crafts had been shipping wares to wholesalers in Nashua for years (see HD 2003.50) and decided to establish a local branch. His son, James Monroe Crafts (1817-after 1899), was the first manager; this extremely rare mark dates to that period. James' brother, Martin Crafts (1807-1880) took over in the summer of 1838, and the wares were then marked "MARTIN CRAFTS / NASHUA, N.H." There are also similar examples to this pot marked "T. Craft and Co." without the word "Nashua."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2013.16.2 |
