Coffeepot, Staffordshire or Yorkshire, England, circa 1780. Historic Deerfield, museum purchase with funds provided by Ray J. and Anne K. Groves.
"I met Alistair in 1972. He had often expressed to me his wish for his collection to stay together and be purchased by me for my collection or go to a museum, preferably Historic Deerfield because of the outstanding ceramics which are there," Groves explained. "We put our heads together and found a way to fulfill Alistair's wishes."
Through the generosity of Anne and Ray Groves, Historic Deerfield recently acquired Alistair and Camilla Sampson's personal creamware collection, consisting of 162 figures, vases, urns, tureens, sauce boats, mugs, teapots, food molds, shaving bowls, candlesticks, spittoons, pierced dessert wares, baskets and other forms.
"Any museum or teaching institution, which is how I view Historic Deerfield, moves forward not only with a great staff but with evolving collections. The Sampson collection builds on one of our great strengths, ceramics," says Philip Zea, president of Historic Deerfield.
Perhaps because of their fondness for color, Historic Deerfield's founders, Henry and Helen Flynt, were especially drawn to delft and Chinese Export porcelain, subjects that Amanda E. Lange, curatorial department chair and curator of historic interiors at Historic Deerfield, has written about in two catalogs,
Chinese Export Art at Historic Deerfield
and
Delftware at Historic Deerfield: 1600–1800.
"Our creamware collection, while representative, has never been outstanding," admits Lange, delighted that Historic Deerfield's latest acquisition will make it possible for the museum to show how these lead-glazed earthenwares were used in the Connecticut River Valley.
The name "veilleuse” derives from the French veiller, meaning to keep a night vigil. It originally referred to any night lamp but soon came to be applied to a warmer for food or drink. The example on the far right retains all of its parts, including its spirit burner. Staffordshire or Yorkshire, England, circa 1780–1820. Historic Deerfield, museum purchase with funds provided by Ray J. and Anne K. Groves.
"We have evidence of all sorts of the more utilitarian creamware forms — teapots, coffee pots, cups, saucers, plates, butter tubs and stands, tureens, sugar pots, punch bowls, milk pots, castors for pepper and sugar, basins, ewers and wet syrup jars — being used here. On the other hand, some of the very specialized pieces in the Sampson collection might not have been found in the Connecticut River Valley," says Lange.
For instance, there is probably "no chance" that a large, impressive, circa 1767 Wedgwood urn with lion's head decoration "would have crossed the ocean for an American interior." Even it, however, offers fruitful opportunity for investigating "vase-mania," the Grand Tour-inspired fashion for pottery imitating antiquities, says the curator.
Also known as Queens ware, creamware was invented by Enoch Booth (1717–circa 1743) of Tunstall, England, in the 1740s. Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) perfected and successfully marketed the ceramic body. Wedgwood's version of creamware resulted from many experiments with white clays and improved glazes.
By 1762, Wedgwood developed a light, sturdy, refined and inexpensive cream-colored earthenware body. It could be left plain or elaborately decorated. Creamware's smooth surface was ideal for hand painting or transfer printing.
Creamware was immediately popular on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1768, Wedgwood wrote that "The demand for this sd
Creamcolour
, Alias,
Queen's Ware
, Alias,
Ivory
, still increases. It is really amazing how rapidly the use of it has spread allmost over the whole Globe, & how universally it is liked."
In 1765,
England's Queen Charlotte ordered a complete tea set made of green and gold enameled Wedgwood creamware. Middle-class consumers rushed to purchase creamware, ending the fashion for tin-glazed earthenware and salt-glazed stoneware, which was difficult to decorate. Pearlware, tinted with cobalt to give it a blue cast reminiscent of porcelain, subsequently replaced creamware.
A whimsical favorite is this Toby jug, holding on his knee a foaming mug of ale. Toby jugs were first made in an area called The Potteries in Staffordshire, England, in the latter half of the Eighteenth Century for pouring ale in taverns and middle-class homes. The term Toby probably comes from Toby Philpot, the nickname of Harry Elwes, whose fondness for alcohol was celebrated in the song "The Brown Jug,” published in 1761. The potter stippled the clay on the mug to simulate the effervescent froth. Lead-glazed creamware, Staffordshire or Yorkshire, England, circa 1800. Historic Deerfield, museum purchase with funds provided by Ray J. and Anne K. Groves.
The creamware in Sampson's collection is rococo or neoclassical in style. An outstanding example of the rococo taste is a sauceboat dating to about 1780. The overall form, which features gadrooning, is inspired by silver of the same period. The sauceboat is lavishly decorated with a molded handle fashioned, much like a ship's figurehead, as a female bust. The sides are decorated with scenes from
Fables of Aesop and Others
(London, 1722).
Sampson's preference was for later, more architectural forms in the neoclassical taste. One great rarity is a set of four candlesticks. Their vase-shaped stems are elaborately ornamented with scroll handles and swags of husks. Lange identifies an illustration in James and Charles Whitehead's 1798 pattern book as the probable source of the design. The candlesticks were made in Hanley, Staffordshire, between 1796 and 1800.
Says Lange, "A lot of these pieces are press-molded. They are decorated, but not enameled. Sampson admired form and crisp molding."
One departure for the collector was a partial tea and coffee service decorated with the popular transfer printed pattern "Liverpool Birds," also known as "Exotic Birds." The service was made around 1775, probably by Wedgwood, and printed by Guy Green of Liverpool.
One of the curator's favorite pieces is a circa 1800 Toby jug. Says Lange, "Even though whimsical, it is a great demonstration of the potter doing his work. His manipulation of the clay to give the figure expression and to simulate the appearance of froth on a mug of ale is remarkable."
"Very few potteries marked their wares," notes Lange. Roughly 15 pieces in the Sampson trove are marked, either by Wedgwood or by Leeds Pottery, also known as Hartley, Greens & Company. Pattern books remain a good, if not infallible, way of attributing unmarked pieces.
Traditionally, Historic Deerfield's small creamware collection has been scattered among the 13 museum houses that contain much of its 25,000-object collection. Lange hopes to introduce more into these period vignettes.
Alistair Sampson (1929–2006).
The majority of the Sampson collection will be on view in the Flynt Center of Early New England Life, the museum's purpose-built galleries for open storage and changing exhibitions. Information about the collection can be accessed through Historic Deerfield's collections database. A printed handout is planned.
"It used to be that if you wanted to see creamware in the United States, you visited Winterthur, Colonial Williamsburg or Longue Vue House and Gardens in New Orleans. With the Sampson collection, Historic Deerfield is on the creamware map, too," says Lange, who looks forward to sharing the varied riches of Historic Deerfield's ceramics collection with experts and novices alike.
As Sampson wrote, "When you are bored with Bow, depressed by Derby, miffed with Meissen, weary of Worcester, pulverized by Plymouth, choked with Chelsea and nauseated by Nymphenburg — love Leeds."
Historic Deerfield's museum houses and Flynt Center of Early New England Life are open daily 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, through December 30. For information, 413-775-7214 or www.historic-deerfield.org.
