St. Patrick's Day is a wee month off! How about decorating with a handsome collection of matte green Arts & Crafts pottery?
The Arts & Crafts vase, shown above, was made around 1910 by the Zanesville Art Pottery Company in Zanesville, Ohio. The company was founded by David Schmidt in 1900. They made a limited range of forms—roughly-moulded in stoneware—and glazed in a small palette of colors. Zanesville's Arts & Crafts matte green glaze has always been one of my favorites (and it was amongst the first collections I assembled in my new shop in 1995). When I first started buying these pieces, mostly in New England, they were commonly referred-to by the name "Norwalk." I believe that this regional name variation is because a lot of Zanesville Arts & Crafts pottery was sold at The Old Pot Shop in Norwalk, Connecticut. Some pieces were even specially-marked with the Norwalk Pot Shop logo.
The "roughly-finished" casting and glazing lends the pottery a naive, hand-crafted charm. And it's important to remember that many of these "decorative ceramics" offerings grew-out of the more utilitarian production lines that were the industry's bread and butter (pipes, bricks, water coolers, crocks, mixing bowls). Therefore, not all pottery companies (at the Turn-of-the-Century) pursued the high-end "fit-and-finish" of the more upscale "artistic" studios.
Zanesville stopped production in 1920, at which time the company was absorbed by the Weller Pottery Company. Weller had its own (wonderful) line of matte green pottery. So this range of vases and bowls was discontinued.
This high-shouldered vase is decorated with a single, moulded tobacco leaf. (I have been told that Frank Lloyd Wright had the same vase on his desk.) But it's the color—The Wearing of the Green—that makes this piece so handsome. And so appropriate for St. Paddy's Day. Click on the photo above to learn more about this handsome piece.
Though our Greenwich Village store is now permanently closed, LEO Design is still alive and well! Please visit our on-line store where we continue to sell Handsome Gifts (www.LEOdesignNYC.com).
To arrange a visit our Pittsburgh showroom (by private appointment only), please call 917-446-4248.