Majolica on Both Sides of the Atlantic, Part 2
By Marilyn G. Karmason

Contiuned from Part 1

Griffen, Smith and Hill
English majolica began to wane in popularity in about the mid-1870s. At the American Centennial in Philadelphia in 1876, American potters recognised the potential importance of majolica, bringing brightly coloured patterns to replace the white or blue and white patterns of dinnerware. It was the manufacture by Griffen, Smith and Hill that American majolica with its Shell and Seaweed dinner service came into great prominence. Although American majolica had been produced by migrant English potters since the early 1850s (Edwin Bennett in Baltimore Md., with his brother William for example), American majolica blossomed in 1879 when Griffen, Smith and Hill produced the outstanding, award-winning Shell and Seaweed. In the beginning, Shell and Seaweed resembled a Wedgwood pattern and was glazed in an argenta background in Wedgwood style (it was unsuccessful). Thereafter, the well-known pieces were glazed nacreous shell-pink. The dinner service consisted of service for 12 and coffee and tea services, ice-cream services, compotes, butter servers and butter pats, salt and peppers, open salts, toothpick holders, humidors and even spittoons. Shell and Seaweed established the GSH fortune. Other Wedgwood look-alikes were the GSH strawberry / sugar / cream serving dish and the GSH baseball and soccer cider jugs, which were derived from the Wedgwood athletic jugs with cricket and soccer players. The GSH sardine dish resembled the George Jones piece. There were various Aesthetic Movement sunflower syrup jugs, swanfinialed cheese bells, sardine dishes and paperweights. Equally English-inspired were pitchers decorated with wild roses, plates with raspberries and tea services with birds. A pansy-designed butter pat was hard to distinguish from that of Copeland. The GSH oyster plate is thought to be the only American version of an oyster plate and has been bid up to $6000.

Although the GSH factory in Phoenixville PA., was 115 miles from the Atlantic shore, the firm produced not only shell-and-seaweed pieces, but also compotes with stands modelled as entwined or separate dolphins. Agricultural symbols – vegetable and fruit designs, especially cauliflower, corn, pineapple, strawberry and grapevines – also prevailed. Other full dinner services, but without the large serving dishes, were in the Oriental pattern, Bamboo. Other patterns included Rustic and Cauliflower. Side dishes in the begonia leaf shape, compotes with daisies, cake platters with maple leaves, pitchers with butterfly spouts or set with hawthorn motifs in the asymmetric Oriental style, and the ‘Conventional’ pattern on various shapes where the name ‘Conventional’ symbolized the use of the stylized flower motif…all these and more were products of the GSH factory. The first mark of the factory was the monogram ‘GSH’ impressed in old English letters. The next mark of the factory was the monogram within two concentric circles, with the words ‘Etruscan Majolica’ between the circles. A rare example is simply ‘Etruscan’. Incised letters indicated specific shapes of the pieces. Despite the creativity, the firm was decimated by withdrawal of major leaders and by the arch-enemy of a pottery, fire. It closed in 1893.

Other American Potteries
At the Philadelphia Centennial, the dramatic exhibition of Minton majolica stimulated interest in potteries other than GSH. James Carr of New York and Trenton produced pieces that were similar to shell-and-seaweed patterns of Wedgwood. George Morley in East Liverpool, Ohio, made upright gurgling fish, owls and parrots that reseumbled English pitchers of the same designs. The Chesapeake pottery of Baltimore, Md., under the direction of David Haynes paid tribute to Wedgwood with its albino, rough-surfaced pieces featuring the Wedgwood Blackberry Bramble design. The most attractive pottery was made in Trenton by the Eureka Pottery, established in 1883. It specialised in highly and colourfully glazed ice-cream services, owl-and-fan tea services, bird-and-fan serving pieces and plates following a Wedgwood design, and Stork pitchers with motifs reminiscent of Minton’s and George Jones’. Hampshire Pottery in Keene, N.H., produced traditional table pieces in a rustic brown and green design. The New Milford Pottery Co. in New Milford, Conn., opened in 1887. The factory produced utilitarian pieces in restrained colours. In 1892, with the re-organisation of the company called Wannopee, the factory brought forth a French faience pattern, Lettuce Leaf, in majolica. Its number of different shapes brought to mind those of GSH, and it added items such as olive dishes, asparagus plates, chop plates, square, rectangular or ovoid plates, tobacco jars and large candlesticks. The firm was successful until 1904, when it failed. It soon was re-established in Trenton using original molds from New Milford. Portland, Maine, and Evansville, Ind., are known to have produced majolica, but no marked pieces are known at this time.

End of an Era
At the close of the reign of Queen Victoria in 1901, majolica production was at an end. Production, which had increased since 1875 but with fewer original examples and with less artistic enterprise, was finally overcome by the fatal effects of plumbism, or lead poisoning. Labour and management could not resolve the workers’ demands and factory doors were closed. The public looked for new designs in Art Nouveau and in the Art Pottery movement.

The Continent
In Europe, potteries in France and Germany continued to produce majolica. Most striking were the numerous designs of asparagus plates and serving pieces of the Alsace-Lorraine area, and the 19th century Palissy works of French ceramic artists of Paris and Tours, and the majolica of Choisy-le-Roi, Sarreguemines, Luneville and Saint Clement, and Onnaing among others. The Massier family in Vallurais in the south of France produced the link between traditional Victorian majolica and Art Nouveau pottery. Villery and Boch of Germany, Wilhelm Schiller and Sons of Czechoslovakia, Mafra and Sons of Caldas de Rainha, Portugal, and Rorstrand of Sweden all contributed to the ceramic history of the latter half of the century.

Reproductions
As the price of Victorian majolica increased and the presence of majolica on the market becomes more scarce, some collectors will turn to reproductions to increase their collections. Some reproductions have a charm of their own, but it is wise to distinguish ‘repros’ from their original pieces. Reproductions cost less than antique pieces, and the buyer must recognise the difference. In reproductions, the glaze can be less intense and less uniform over the piece. The weight of the body – and at times the temperature – is less. It is mandatory to check the mark on the undersurface. It can be fraudulent or non-existent. Some repros do have the appropriate mark of factories in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, China or Italy. In some repros, the modelling of a piece can be an accurate copy of the original, but in many cases details are much less exact and the colour of glazes is not as appropriate (ocean waves of brown, for example). Some complex pieces are not reproducec with all the segments, such as a cache pot without the underplate. Majolica undersurfaces are almost always glazed, indcluding the outer rim; with repros there may be no glaze there. Designs themselves are not as graceful. With continued viewing of pieces of majolica, the collector comes to distinguish between the original and the copy.

There are many valid reproductions, such as those by Minton & Co. and Mottehedah. The function of the Minton copy is to celebrate the Minton bicentennial. Each year since 1993, Minton has manufactured almost exact copies of its Victorian majolica tea pot, the Chinese Actor tea pot, the Cat and Mouse tea pot, the Monkey and Cockerel tea pot and the Blowfish tea pot, with the Turtle tea pot slowly ambling towards eager collectors. Each tea pot undersurface is carefully marked with the year of production, the number of teapots in each series, the specific number of the particular tea pot and the label of the body as ‘Fine China’ (not passing as majolica). The Mottehedah Co. has reproduced almost all forms of ceramics, including majolica, but has always labelled the undersurface appropriately. Mottehedah copies also have a function; it is said that in places such as the White House, ‘souvenirs’ may disappear, so it is necessary to guard against the greater loss of the original piece.

Bibliography

Majolica: A Complete History and Illustrated Survey by Marilyn G. Karmason with Joan B. Stacke
Majolica, by Nicholas Dawes
George Jones Ceramics 1861-1951, by Robert Cluett
Majolica, by Victoria Bergesen
Portuguese Palissy Ware, by Marshall Katz
Majolica Figures, by Helen Cunningham
Victorian Majolica, by Leslie Bockol
The Collector’s Encyclopedia of Majolica, by Mariann Katz-Marks
Majolica, American and European Wares, by Jeffrey B. Snyder & Leslie Bockol

Article originally printed in ‘Antique Trader Weekly, March 2000, courtesy of The Majolica International Society.