Identifying porcelain fragments

Hi everyone,

I’m new to the forum. I recently bought a late 18th / early 19th century New England farmhouse and am trying to identify some of the porcelain scraps I found while excavating the basement. I’m specifically trying to get an idea around dates, although it would also be interesting to identify the patterns. I’m hoping someone can help me!

I made an album - “Basement Archeology”
https://www.antiquers.com/media/albums/basement-archeology.818/
Hopefully the items will show up there. (As I said, I’m new to this )

 

Welcome, Zil! And what an interesting project. Lots of knowledgable people here; sure someone will be able to help.

Debora

 

Hi and welcome!

I think I have one of yours so far, what you say is a plate rim fragment I think may be Adams Columbia pattern or at least the border seems like it.




https://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-St...278172?hash=item3dab3368dc:g:r4sAAOSwui1fCJFl

Mark info:
http://www.thepotteries.org/mark/a/adams.html

 

Ahh yes! It does look like a match. Thank you. That is one down.

This is like playing antique snap

 

That's fairly old. And how clever of say_it_slowly to find.

Debora

 

Yes, I’m impressed! I obviously came to the right place. From what I can tell it looks like the pattern dates to the early 19th century? The house was supposedly built around 1790 with an addition in 1830.

 

The mark on the eBay plate dates it to between 1819-1864. And of English manufacture.

Debora

 

This image if from the border detail of a pattern called Priory by Edward Challinor & Co, 1853-62. It appears to be the same image.





https://www.ebay.com/itm/E-Challino...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Mark info:
http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/263a.htm

 

British as well.

Debora

 

Thank you again. You’re really good at this! Do you think the side fragments I posted are from the same piece? I thought so because the outside has that little castle on it. The inside is the floral border.

There’s one more that I realised I didn’t post - putting it in the album now. It looks like a family playing with a dog. Both the man and the woman have high-crowned hats and her dress is fairly slim but not Empire - so I think in style maybe late Regency / early Victorian

 

It’s funny because I’m British and my current house was built by a Scotsman and then I buy this one and it’s full of English pottery. I must be drawn to these situations, or something. I’m going to the local records office on Friday to try and trace the deed. It would be interesting to know if the inhabitants at that time were British or of British ancestry.

 

Probably has more to do with the American pottery industry.

Quick internet search....

Yep. I was right. Before the Civil War, white pottery for table use was imported. According to this:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/254390?journalCode=jpe

Debora

 

Ahh, so interesting. It’s so often wars that drive changes these kinds of changes.

 

I'm not sure at all about this so as with the others I'll leave it to you to see what you think. There are variation in this pattern called Ontario Lake Scenery and here is an example by J Heath, 1845-53. It's not uncommon for transfer patterns to be used by more than one maker often with variations. There are also often variation depending on which size item it's used on.






https://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-J-...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557


Mark info:
http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/527.htm

 

Yes, this one is interesting because the castle part seems quite a good match. And the inside of the Ontario Lake Scenery pieces do have that floral border on a striped background. However in the fragment I have the flowers on the border seem to be compartmentalised into sections whereas the Ontario Lake Scenery pieces that I’ve searched on have a more flowing border. I’m wondering if there were maybe different variations, or maybe like you say, they copied the motifs?

 

I suspect all are British except maybe that plain piece. We were exporting like mad to the "colonies" - your industry hadn't got going.

 

Agree, except that as a Brit living in America I’d have to say “their” industry hadn’t got going yet ;-)

It’s interesting that it seems like for around ~80 years after American independence, they were still so reliant on imports from Britain. It just shows that nothing is ever cut and dried.

 

Don't forget fashion. Ceramics follow what is fashionable (and available) at the time. Different parts of the US have clusters of ceramics from different countries.

 

Makes sense. It’s got me thinking about what “fashionable” items someone might be unearthing from our basements in a couple of hundred years time!