Description:
Whitish-grey stoneware jar stamp-impressed "J.M. CRAFTS & CO./ Whately. Mass." in-filled with cobalt blue, over two large blue leaves flanking a foliate spray. James Monroe Crafts (1817-after 1899), one of 8 children of the potter Thomas Crafts (1781-1761) of Whately, continued the family pottery business. In 1838, James was briefly the first manager of his father's new branch of stoneware works in Nashua, New Hampshire. In late 1841 or 1842, James returned to Crafts pottery in Whately, and produced pottery under his own name until he was joined by his brother, Thomas Spenser Crafts (b.1825), using the "J.M. & T.S. CRAFTS / Whately. Mass" mark from about 1850 to 1851 when Thomas Spenser Crafts left for California to search for gold. The jar has a beveled base and straight sides continuing up until approximately three-fourths of the distance up, and then curving in towards the flared rim; an interior rim supported a cover (missing). A tooled line circumscribes the body 3.2 cm below the rim. The salt glaze is of medium thickness; the interior is covered with Albany slip. There are rows of incised grooves and a circular stress fracture on the bottom. There is no volume mark on jar but it is approximately one gallon.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+78.099 |
