Featured Gilt porcelain pitcher - impressed mark(s) - origin/age?

Hi again all This was so pretty I had to buy it. The only marks I can find are are impressed underglaze on the base. It's about 7" high. Any ideas on origin? Tried to get pics of the mark (script capital F)?

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Please take this with a grain of salt but . . . I am seeing "JB" with the downward stroke of the "B" being the same as (overriding?) the downward stroke of the cursive "J".

The decoration on that pitcher is lovely.

 

Thank you! I've done a little contrast increase / crop and rotated the photo - I now believe it's an L. What do you think?

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I think you are correct about it being a capital cursive "L" -- thank you for posting that last photo.

 

Easier to see with light behind it.

 

Hi,
Looks like the Lenox "L" before when it was called Belleek. !904-1924.
greg

 

Thanks Greg! Indeed it does - very much so. I've been poking around to see if there are any other examples of early Lenox porcelain with an impressed L rather than a stamped or painted mark. I've come up empty handed. Any ideas if this might be a Lenox piece from the Belleek era?

 

Hi Aaron,
It just seems to be an early Lenox piece. It is porcelain but I have only seen the "printed" L. I guess further digging might give up some clues. I really miss my friend who worked in the research dept of Lenox. Since Lenox was sold to Dept 56 no further information is available.
greg

 

I've done a bit more poking around - and to me this piece looks far more similar to perhaps Tucker porcelain(Philadelphia) from 1820/30 than to early 20th Lenox(although if that's an L it does look like the Lenox L. Especially the handle, and the gilt decoration. I did find that one of the Tucker decorators/ porcelain mold person was a Charles Frederick - who would inscribe a script capital F into the paste of pieces he worked on (I first though the mark on this one was an F until I flipped it around). I don't see any other examples of this form online as Tucker - but in general appearance to me it seems to match up better. So - maybe?

 

It does not look like the F shown in Lehner's for Charles Frederick.

 

Thanks Janet...i couldn't find a depiction of the F mark.

 

As a Philadelphian and novice collector of similar items I do agree it looks similar to Tucker Porcelain. But it also appears to read Lo not just L. The right tail of the L is seldom seen terminating at the bottom of a circle an drew usually would look more like a L with a curved swirl but followed by a downward line. Just my 2 cents. L or "Lo"

 

Hi,
Nice catch Ihaveolditems. Welcome to the board!
greg

 

Been a year and a half but I pulled this pitcher down off the shelf tonight and was looking at it some more - did a little more googling and found this(pitcher sold on ebay in 2013):

https://www.globalgaragesale.net/itemlisting.aspx?item=156504

It's pretty close to half the size of mine, but the form seems to be just about the same. The one in the link was sold as Tucker Hemphill and had an old note inside saying it was - but who knows if it really was. I think the only authoritative way is to look at the Tucker pattern books which are in the Philadelphia museum of art Library. Anyhow - just a small update

 

Are any of the books old enough to be digitized online, possibly? Thanks for updating your discussion thread.

 

I'm not sure - I haven't found the pattern books online (just means i haven't found them - not that they can't possibly be somewhere) - and as far as I know there are no other hard copies of them - just the originals at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

 

I wonder whether the library staff will do any research (for a fee, probably, if they do)? Or if you live close enough, maybe plan a trip there some time?

 

I might make it up there in 2019...it's about a 3 hour drive for me. We'll see I'll take your suggestion and see if they do any research for a fee though...thanks Fig!

 

No... I think the book you linked to is photographic essay about the actual Tucker pieces that are in museum. The pattern books are hand drawn... one has shapes and the other documents the painted designs.