Featured Help Identify These Pottery Fragments

Hello all! I wanted to share some old fragments of pottery that I dug up at a long-gone farmstead in Maryland. The house collapsed from neglect and the rubble was burned, so whole specimens of pottery are basically nonexistent (aside from a teacup, but that will be its own post).

I’ve always wanted to know what these really looked like. For more info, the purple flowery piece was shattered in hundreds of fragments beside the stairs to the front door. It was pulled out of the soil when a tree uprooted. My sister attempted to piece it back together but gave up and three tons of it in the trash. So I saved one piece.

The geometric green and red pieces are really odd. The only non-transfer ware examples. Very curious about that. (The yellow is to cover up my name that teenage me wrote on every find with permanent marker...)

The blue transferware pitcher makes me sad because I can tell it was a really nice piece once. No marking on bottom except a little blue shape? If you can point me to a whole one with the same picture, I’d really like to own it.

The black transferware is the only piece I found at the farmhouse. Just wondering if anyone might be able to match that design to whole examples.

Thanks for any leads!

 

What exciting finds!
The pitcher looks like English transferware, maybe 1830-60.
I'm no expert, but that's my impression on the age.

 

I have no idea how old the farmhouse was, but the size of the foundation and history of the area makes me think it was originally a settler’s cabin. There is a 1700’s one down the road which is now a bed-and-breakfast.

The last family moved out in the 40’s and it was in bad shape already then. Kind of a Ma and Pa Kettle situation I think!!

On the other hand, I also found a trinket from the 1893 Chicago World Fair where there used to be a back veranda, so the history of this place is confusing to me.

 

Do you have access to the area now? You say that you found these pieces as a teenager.
There was probably a garbage dump somewhere on that property, which might yield more pottery pieces and glass bottles

 

I think the creamer might be a pattern called Baronial Halls by T J & J Mayer. I didn't find a creamer in the pattern but here is a coffee pot. The scene changes a bit depending on the piece. A little info on Mayer if that's it.

T J & J Mayer
http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/720.htm

Yours


https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-tj-mayer-blue-transferware-2003928217

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-19th-century-tj-mayer-456127306

 

It all looks to be early to mid nineteenth Staffordshire made transferware, other than the green and red. That's spongeware I think, might be Scottish.

 

It was beside a creek so we suspect a lot washed away over time. But we still have access and still wonder about that. The outhouse too... Only have one very blurry aerial photo from the 40’s.

 

The building looks different but the trees appear to be the same, I think? The border is definitely the same. Thanks a lot! Gives me something to search at least.

 

Ah spongeware. The term is new to me. Will be researching that now!

 

Your first one is just a border but may be from a pattern called Corrella. As with many transferware patterns it seems to have had more than one maker.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Co...748871?hash=item1cd8e19d87:g:7R0AAOSwbdxdbdTb



Yours


https://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-La...403949?hash=item1f08124fad:g:jPsAAOSwUORd~SOn

 

The thing about transfers is that they were produced and copied by many factories, who then sold them on to pottery makers. Which is a lovely bit of history.

 

Sometimes finding the exact shape piece is helpful as the scene can change based on the size and shape of the piece. It could be something else as there are many similar patterns and made by numerous makers but here is a scene from the Baronial Halls pattern on a saucer and while still not the same, is closer to the print on yours. I'm sure there is a jug/creamer out there somewhere.

EDIT to add a teabowl with the same print.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TJ-J-Mayer...760445?hash=item265f5e1c7d:g:DAUAAOSwxkdeqjL3




https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2222043_470-early-baronial-halls-english

 

A fascinating project!

Debora

 

We have been unearthing pieces of old glass and pottery in our vegetable garden here in Iowa. It used to be the site of an orchard in the 19th Century and early 20th Century. There was a farmhouse somewhere, but records are real clear as to where exactly. Fun to dig up anyway. Lots of milkglass fragments and some painted pottery. Nothing bigger than a square inch though so far.

 

Years ago, the gas people relaid the main into my parents house, and had to lift the front path in the process. Whole old bottles came out. The workers had great fun - ma told them I collected old glass and they did an almost archaeological dig, bless them.

 

Nice.

 

I volunteered for years in archaeology both in the field and lab. Always one of my favorite things was sherd identification as ceramics are very important in understanding and dating sites. Finding examples of whole objects is always enlightening.

(and my unusual obsession with ceramics could sometimes find a useful purpose)

 

Wow! Good job! It looks exactly like that border.

 

Nice! Sadly my grandfather owned this property where the ruins of the farm were and he once brought some friends to basically wreck the place and take all the bottles they found. Knocking over walls, etc. So who knows what we may have found? My grandfather apparently didn’t keep any himself.

 

In red! That looks like the same print certainly. There has to be a whole blue creamer somewhere...