Page 54 - THE BOOK MCLHHC

MAISON CHENAL & LACOUR HOUSE PROPERTIES & COLLECTION A Louisiana French Creole Tout Ensemble
An early Mochaware Pitcher.
popular among collectors as is spatterware which is included here. A painted peafowl or a transferware scene is often used to enhance the sponge pattern of spatterware.
By the 1820s transferware begins its ascension and successfully competed with the colorful mocha and edgedware as the common and preferred everyday china. However, edgedware and mocha continued to be produced throughout the 19th century. Entire collections are built around transferware but our enthusiasm begins to wane. There is no end to the patterns. Almost as a contradiction, we begin the inventory with transferware perhaps because our two favorite pieces in the collection are plates with views of the St. Louis Cathedral - one of which was dug in Baton Rouge. Labeled transferwares merchandised in New Orleans and Historical Staffordshire, especially if it features General Lafayette, continues to excite us. General Lafayette was wildly and enthusiastically popular in Louisiana and Historical Staffordshire featuring him is treasured.
The historical record confirms much of what the shards taught us. C. C. Robin and John Pintard traveled in Louisiana at the beginning of the 19th century. Pintard writing home in 1802 and describing New Orleans says, “All Luxury confined to what is put on the table to be eaten, and here profusion abounds. ...There is no display of plate beyond the fork and spoon - and as to porcelain or chrystal (sic) services they are totally unknown”. Speaking of decorations in the home Pintard comments, “I have seen very common English figure stoneware displayed and that at the best houses ...”. C.C. Robin in his characteristic and caustic style writes in Voyage to Louisiana, 1803 :
Pearlware cast figurines as described by John Pintard in 1802
“Our fine porcelains do not sell well here; first because the populace is so unknowledgeable they are not distinguished from ordinary china, and second, because the care of the tableware is given over to the Negroes, who are so clumsy and destructive that it does not last long and must be highly expendable. The tableware is a nice English earthenware, so cheap that the French product cannot compete with it. With lowered prices and increased quantity the chinaware industry could become one of our most important branches of trade. The consumption of china throughout Louisiana is enormous, No one, not even the poorest, uses cheap simple pottery, not even our sturdy and solid Rouen ware.”
RECOMMENDED READINGS ARE:
Hume, Ivor Noël. If These Pots Could Talk, Collecting 2,000 Years of British Household Pottery. Chipstone Foundation: Handover and London, 2001.
McAllister, Lisa S. Feather Edge Ware Identification and Values. Collectors Books a Division of Schroeder Publishing Co, 2001.
Richard, Jonahan. Mocha and Related Dipped Wares, 1770 – 1939. University Press of New England: Handover and London, 2005.
Robert Hunter and George Miller. Suitable for Framing: Decorated Shell-Edge Earthenware. Early American Life, pp 8-19, Aug 2009.
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