Museum accessions.

The Bayou Bend Collection at e Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has added several objects to its collection that underscore the range and depth of its American ceramics holdings. At one end are works by early folk artisans working in Texas; at the other are examples by some of the earliest producers of high-quality porcelain in the United States. Representative of the former are the pottery spaniel and the salt-glazed stoneware jar illustrated here. The spaniel (below) was made by J. L. Stone, who came to Texas from Illinois and worked at a number of potteries in Limestone County, Texas, from about 1870 to 1900. A folk art icon, the figure is ultimately derived from the popular spaniel figures first produced in Staffordshire, England, in the 1830s and was widely copied by potteries here. Unlike most of its British and American counterparts, however, the Stone spaniel is modeled entirely by hand, not molded.

The jar (top) is attributed to Isaac Suttles, who had migrated to Texas from Ohio by 1870 and is credited with introducing salt glazing to the potters working in Guadalupe County, some of whom were former slaves. For more about their enterprises, see the December 2002 issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES (p.26).

The rare porcelain coffeepot (below) augments the museum's extensive holdings of porcelain made by the Tucker manufactory in Philadelphia, one of the first in the United States. Tea and coffee wares were among the most expensive objects produced by the firm, which was founded by William Ellis Tucker in 1826 and ...