By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — When the Red Wing Stoneware Company was founded in 1877 in Red Wing, Minnesota, the company only made stoneware like crocks and jugs. Red Wing's management figured the company had better make something else if it was going to stay in business, so it began producing art pottery and dinnerware. In 1936, the company changed its name to Red Wing Potteries, which it used until it closed in ’67. A gentleman named George RumRill, who was a designer but not a potter, is credited with...

Early American Crocks and Jars

By Richmond Huntley — "Five good old-fashioned stone crocks! Not a nick or a chip on any of them. Look at this little brown one with the cover. Grandma kept her yeast in that. She never fooled around with the store kind. And you neighbors can all remember the ginger cookies and hermits she always kept in those two reddish ones with the splotches on 'em. See that gray one there with the blue posy? That used to be full of green tomato pickles, made as only grandma knew how to make 'em. This big one was her churn....

Potters of Pottersville

By Eva M. Barker — Many times I had read the name "Pottersville" over the door of the little Post Office, but it was not until the hurricane and "tidal wave" of September 21, 1938, deposited a pottery jug in my dooryard at Somerset, Massachusetts, that my interest was aroused. It was a gallon-sized jug of light brown pottery with a thin transparent glaze. A wooden stopple made the jug watertight, and it had "floated in" without any damage, other than a small chip on the rim of the mouth. Upon...

Bowes Curator Howard Coutts on Meissen, Staffordshire, and Sèvres

By Maribeth Keane — I’m the curator of the ceramics bit of the Bowes Museum. It’s a big museum with 30 galleries of which three or four are devoted to ceramics alone. Within Britain, it’s got one of the biggest and most expensive groups for people to see. We have about 5,000 or so pieces in the collection. We’re not sure exactly. It’s all registered, but of course we get tea sets registered under one number, so I think in total it’s about 5,000. I’ve collected both cups and saucers over the years, which...