The Used To Be Highway

The modern redware potter drives home from a show pondering crazy thoughts like “why am I doing all this,” and “does everything I do look backward?” (stylistically to earlier eras, financially to better shows, etc.)  The redware potter is traveling the Used To Be Highway.

Such a highway exists, of course, but not necessarily in the depressing way described above.  Interpreting historical styles, like redware, falls solidly along a venerable continuum of reproductions, copies, and revivals (and fakes and forgeries) made since ancient times.

Romans, fascinated by earlier Etruscan pottery, commissioned Etruscan style work for many of their lavish pavilions.  Chinese potters copied older work to honor past masters.  Medieval European artisans made historical reproductions for holy pilgrimage tourists.  Copies of 16th century Siegburg stoneware, often from original 16th century molds, were popular during the late 19th century German Gothic revival.  The nascent 19th century American tourist industry considered historical work a patriotic act.  And maintaining traditional cultural expressions in the face of changing times has motivated artists throughout time.

Blue and white pottery gets complicated.  This idea went back and forth in so many ways across the globe that it almost resembles light.  Is light (for example) a wave or a particle?  Is Delft (for example) a copy or an original style?

Then there’s fakes and forgeries. What appears to be simple malfeasance (and often is) can also be a complex issue.  Was early Delftware a forgery?  Are fakes worse than pilfered archeological sites?  What of desperate families peddling fake artifacts in impoverished but historically significant areas, or the work of Ai Wei?

Copying masterpieces was for centuries a principle method of arts instruction.  Intense observational and technical skills are required, and honed, when studying historical artifacts in this way.  A simple test illustrates this point: make two mugs, one which you thought up in your head, the other as an exact replica of someone else’s mug.  Ask yourself afterwards which effort stretched your skills more?

It’s tempting to draw some meaningful conclusion about why potters today might work within historical styles, given the array of available paths.  (Or are these stylistic options just interpretations of a different sort?).  But regardless of the route they took to get there, or the bumps along the way, many potters (and other artisans) who make historically based work will tell you – it’s just tremendously fun to do.

Readings:

Decorated Stoneware Pottery of North America.  Donald Webster.  Charles Tuttle Co./Rutland, VT.  1971.

Dutch Pottery and Porcelain.  Pitcairn Knowles.  Scribner’s/New York.  1940.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  Reginald Haggar.  Hawthorn Books/ New York.  1960.

If These Pots Could Talk.  Ivor Noel Hume.  University Press of New England/Hanover, NH.  2001.

The Rise of the Staffordshire Potteries.   John Thomas.  Augustus Kelly Publishers/New York.  1971.

Stoneware: White Salt-Glazed, Rhenish and Dry Body.  Gérard Gusset.  National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada/Ministry of the Environment, Ottawa, Canada.  1980.

Unearthing New England’s Past: The Ceramic Evidence.  Exhibition Catalogue.  Museum of Our National Heritage/Lexington, MA.  1984.

Hausmalerei

Fake, Forgery:  An intentionally deceptive replica or reproduction.

Replica, Reproduction:  An acknowledged copy intended to educate, preserve, or other valid motive – unless done with unscrupulous intent (see above).

Almost every European ceramic style was forged during the 17th to 19th centuries.  Meissen and Sévrès were popular targets.  But migrating craftsmen spread techniques legally, and popular interest sparked legitimate revivals.  Early Seigburg stoneware tankards (from original molds) reappeared in the 1830’s, as did Raeren stoneware in the 1880’s.  For a time Palissy ware was all the rage.

Business Plan:  A set of goals and the plan for reaching those goals.

As European porcelain production spread, quality control efforts clashed with efforts to keep factories solvent.  Owners (usually local royalty) employed many methods to avoid bankruptcy.  Example, some required Jews in their domain to purchase a certain amount of  product.  A less racist idea foreshadowed the modern “Seconds Sale.”

Hausmaler:  A painter of Hausmalerei.

Hausmalerei is the German word for “home painting.”  Freelance decorators set up shop outside most European ceramics factories, beginning in Germany in the mid 17th century.  They purchased defective, undecorated wares and applied their own enameling.  In France an outside decorator was called a chamberlan.  In England outside decorators were called outside decorators.

Hausmalerei wasn’t an actual forgery of the factory ware it came from.  The trouble was, hausmalers got good at it.  Hausmalerei was seen as a necessary but frowned upon evil – even in the best of times.  Just owning a kiln made one suspicious in the eyes of authorities.  Competition with factory-painted wares became so intense, many factories cut off supplies of blank porcelain.  But hausmalerei continued, at times by ‘less than legal’ means…

Individuals Looking For Unusual Pieces:  The usual patrons of this work.

Readings:
The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  Reginald Haggar.  Hawthorn Books/New York.  1960.

 

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