Vase

c. 1909

Designed by Annie E. Aldrich
American, 1857–1937
Made by John Swallow
American, 1856–1920
Decorated by Sarah Tutt
American, 1859–1947
Marblehead Pottery
Marblehead, Massachusetts, 1904–1936

Marblehead Pottery exemplifies the American Arts and Crafts movement’s preoccupation with therapeutic reform through handicraft. Herbert Hall established a ceramics studio at his Marblehead sanatorium in 1904 to rehabilitate “nervously worn out patients.” Hall hired professional ceramist Arthur Baggs to assist with production, and by 1908, Marblehead had begun to focus on pottery with incised geometric designs in contrasting matte colors. Here the Japanese-informed teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow, who led a summer art colony at Ipswich, 18 miles from Marblehead, inspired the vase’s stylized marsh landscape.

Status: On View, Gallery 178
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Marblehead Pottery
Title: Vase
Place: Marblehead (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1909
Medium: Glazed earthenware
Inscriptions: Marked on base: "M" and "P" flanking a sailboat at sea within a circle (mark of Marblehead Pottery); beneath Marblehead mark, "A" and beneath this "T" (presumably the initials of Annie E. Aldrich--the designer--and Sarah Tutt--the decorator).
Dimensions: 21.6 × 17.5 × 17.5 cm (8 1/2 × 6 7/8 × 6 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Vance American Art Fund; purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society
Reference Number: 2008.74

Rago Arts, Lambertsville, NJ, Early 20th Century Design, May 12, 2022, lot 144, mentioned. https://www.ragoarts.com/auctions/2022/05/early-20th-century/144 (Accessed May 3, 2022)
Annual Report (Art Institute of Chicago, 2007–2008), 19., ill. p. 24.
Brandon K. Ruud, “Notable Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Museum Studies 35, 2 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 16–17 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago, Nov. 7, 2009–Jan. 31, 2010, cat. 90.

Blanche and George Byrne, Winchester, MA, by the late 1920s; given to her cousin, Gladys Romney (born in Jacksonville, FL, 1894), Boston, by the early 1930s; given to her daughter-in-law, Maxine Gross Romney (died 1917), Boston, and then Ellenboro, NC, by 1956; sold to Dr. Paul Rappaport, Saratoga Springs, NY, 2003; with McCelland and Rachen, New York, by 2008; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2008.

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