Rockingham ware reappraised.

There are many unsolved mysteries in the decorative arts, and, as in some detective stories, the clue to their solution has been in plain sight all the time. Such is the case with Rockingham ware, one of the most ubiquitous products of American kilns during the nineteenth century. The mystery and its solution are engagingly related by Diana Stradling in the introduction to her exhibition catalogue "Fancy Rockingham" Pottery: The Modeller and Ceramics in Nineteenth-Century America. The story starts with the purchase of a pitcher that a private collector thought was English, but which turned out to bear the mark of an American pottery. He continued to acquire more and more Rockingham until his wife, who did not share his passion to the same degree, got frustrated by the clutter of ceramics in their house and decided to organize the very large collection in the way that made the most sense to her--by decorative motif. The revelation that followed was that identical motifs appeared on pieces made in places as far flung as Peoria, Illinois, and Baltimore. The conclusion that Stradling and others have drawn is that modelers and mold makers here as in England routinely supplied molds to potteries all over the country.

More than seventy pieces of Rockingham pottery have been drawn together for an exhibition on view at the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature at the University of Richmond Museums in Richmond, Virginia, from September 9 to February 27, 2005. Strictly speaking, the term Rockingham implies pottery with a brown glaze (achieved through the addition of manganese) that was first manufactured in England at the Rockingham Ceramic Manufactory in Swinton. Stradling makes a case for enlarging the definition to encompass a range of American pottery referred to in the period as "fancy Rockingham" primarily because the pieces had molded relief decoration in ornamental or narrative motifs. Therefore, her selections ...