Artist: Lizzie Siddal (1829-1862)

… All changes pass me like a dream,
I neither sing nor pray;
And thou art like the poisonous tree
That stole my life away.

- Elizabeth Siddal from “Love and Hate”

Many of us have succumbed to the powers of attraction.

Our bodies ruling over our heads. Our emotions soon to follow.

A spell is cast and no matter hard we fight to break it, we just can’t seem to get away.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was one of those… a sorcerer of sorts, and not the good kind. Lizzie Siddal, an artist in her own right, fell under his spell. Today, she is known more as a model or a muse, for the drama with Rossetti and not her work.

Beatrix by DGR

At the age of twenty, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall was working as a milliner. She was unusual in appearance than most of the girls her age. Tall and lean with a mass of glorious red hair, she had agate-colored eyes and alabaster skin. Her voice soft and scant. She caught the attention of many men. She was introduced to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and soon, at his demand, she became his exclusive model.

Lizzie showed promise as an artist, and Rossetti took her on as a student. He had her live with him. He dropped the remaining ‘L’ from her last name. And then he promised to marry her.

Self-Portrait 1853-54

By 1854, several of Lizzie’s paintings and illustrations appeared in the Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition. Lizzie was the only female artist. The following year, John Ruskin saw her work and purchased everything. Ruskin even gave her an allowance to continue her work.

Years passed and Rossetti ’s promises to marry her went unrealized. He began to entertain other artists’ models. Their relationship became tumultuous. Several times she tried to leave but was always worried Rossetti would replace her with a younger, prettier muse. Grief stricken, Lizzie would often fall ill taking laudanum for relief.

In May of 1860, Rossetti and Lizzie finally married. The following May, she gave birth to a stillborn daughter. By the end of the year, Lizzie was pregnant again. In February, she went out to dinner with Rossetti and a friend. She returned home and he went out again. At 11:30 he came home to a dark room. He called to her and received no reply. In bed he found her with an empty vile of laudanum next to the bed.

The grieving husband threw a manuscript of poems he had written into her casket. he began to drink. And take chloral.

Seven years went by and then Rossetti persuaded his friends to exhume Lizzie's body. He wanted to publish the poems he had thrown into her coffin. Late one night, they dug up her grave and pried open the coffin. The poems were retrieved and drenched in disinfectant. His friends told him, not to worry…. Lizzie looked remarkably well.

Georgiana, the wife of the painter Edward Burne-Jones, said of Rossetti: “no one could produce the peculiar charm of his voice with its sonorous roll and beautiful cadences.” No one really knows why or how another person can cast such a powerful spell onto another. No one really knows why people cannot break away from others. But you wonder if Lizzie was able to break from his spell and finally leave him not having to carry the label of a divorced or 'fallen' woman, how good her work could have become.

Respectable B

There are two styles of champagne glasses: one is a flute which features a deep, narrow mouthed bowl which helps to retain the bubbles.

And the second: a saucer with a wide, shallow bowl.

The latter supposedly modeled from the bosom of Mme. de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV.

To those Americans who prefer basketball-sized silicone, I would personally rather liken a perfectly good B cup to a crystal champagne glass...

For more (and always good) info see Emily Evans Eerdmans post.

and for more on the quiet, shy but very active Louis XV see here...

Both images from Dawson and Nye: Morris Plains, NJ, USA. Top - by Baccarat, sold September 23, 2009; and second Lalique coupe glasses sold December 6, 2007.

Some Things Never Change

I remember this phone always being a challenge in my youth. We had one when I was growing up. It came from my Grandfather’s house. He always had the coolest, but not the most practical, things. This phone was not designed with a growing teenager in mind. My conversations on the phone when I was 15 or 16 consisted of me sitting on the floor frantically sewing the legs of my Levis so tight I could barely squeeze my foot through with the phone resting on my shoulder as I repeated the words ‘ohmygawd no way” to a friend on the other line. Because of its sleek Calatrava-esque form, it was impossible for me to comfortably hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I sewed or singed my hair with a curling iron. It was heavy and it would often slip down to the floor hanging up on my friends.

There was a big red button on the bottom. With a gentle touch, it would immediately disconnect the line.

The design also caused additional problems, it was bottom heavy and like a weeble-wobble, it liked to sit upright. If a caller was inquiring to speak with my mom, often times I would say “one moment please” then set it straight down accidentally hanging up. Irritated, the caller always called back.

Now that I am much older and spend less and less time on the telephone, I have new respect and admiration for its elegant design aesthetic. But for the record when I am talking to my friends all these years later, I still say “ohmygawd no way”.

Phone by Ericsson, a Swedish telephone manufacturer (est. 1876); phone designed in 1954 by Hugo Blomberg and Ralph Lysell and put into production by 1957. Image from MoMA.

Designer: Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)

Glass has been made in a variety of shapes and styles for more than 5,000 years -- the styles reflecting the trends of the time. When we look at the glass vase above, our thoughts probably drift to a similar vase we have seen today.

But place this vase in the context of its time. It was created during Victorian England when the reigning taste was all about clutter, bric-a-brac and passementeries.

Gertrude Jekyll designed this vase. I was unaware of it until a friend, Paul Shutler, from across the pond educated me. He has one. An unusual one.

A garden designer and writer, Jekyll designed her gardens very carefully, demonstrating a sensitive and sympathetic relationship between a house and its surroundings. She believed each plant should be studied for habit, foliage and color to achieve a practical, harmonious effect that was most appropriate for its area.

She demonstrated the same theory in this vase.

Gertrude Jekyll was asked by the London retailer James Green to design a series of flower vases. The result: “Munstead Range” after her own cottage Munstead Wood which was designed by the young architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

The vases are the only objects designed by Jekyll. Neither an architect nor an industrial designer, she designed an object intended for the general public – so people could enjoy a bit of nature when they didn’t have the acreage. Jeckyll’s vision and theories were well ahead of her time.

The vase’s form is functional and the lines are essential. She wanted to create something appropriate for cut flowers and foliage. She didn’t want something unnecessary or overwhelming or overly designed. It was different from the usual Victorian vases painted with unsettling colors, or cut with heavy patterning. It wasn’t a clunky form, but perfectly fit for its purpose.


During her career, she carried out over 400 commissions for clients in the UK, Europe and even America. She ran a prosperous nursery garden business at her home well into her eighties. And she was a prolific writer publishing 13 books -- starting after her 55th birthday!

A picture of Gertrude Jekyll sketched by Lutyens c.1896 (from the Museum of Garden History)

Munstead Woods images from garvenvisit.com and the Astoft collection of buildings in England; Vase image and tear sheet courtesy of Paul A. Shutler)

Kreative Blogger

With humble thanks to Little Augury and Art By Karena for passing the Kreativ Blogger award to me. As I will pass it on. The conditions are: list 7 things about yourself that readers might not know, and then nominate 7 other bloggers.

Me:
1. I become paralyzed by the smallest decisions, but when I finally make one I do NOT want to hear: "are you sure?"



2. My favorite color since I was three has been navy. It was my favorite one in the crayon box. My parents moved to a new house when I was four, and my mom asked me what color room I wanted. I said navy. Instead I got baby blue and my brother got navy. To this day baby blue makes me mad.


3. When I was a kid I wanted to be an animator. I used to carefully study the Looney-Tunes cartoons on Saturday morning TV. My drawing skills peaked when I was 12 and I have never been able to surpass that point. As an adult, I wanted to be a furniture designer. I worked towards that goal for years; my life took a series of sudden and sharp turns taking me away from this path.


4. I truly do not understand why some people present themselves as something they are not. Be true. Be yourself. Even if it is painful. Reality is much more complex, rich and interesting.



5. Sometimes I wish I could believe in God.

6. I love to sip a thick, chocolaty cold pint of Guinness. I have difficulties seeing my westie, Billy, as a dog rather than a little person. I still horribly miss my other westie, Tula. Somehow these three loves go together. Each, without fail, makes me feel warm and happy.

Thomas Hart Benton, Homeward Bound (1944)

7. I was born and raised in the Midwest. I first left the area when I was 17 and swore I would never return. I came back. I left three more times and even to another country. Some major incident in life always brought me back. Each time I returned, I said it would only be temporary. No matter where I have lived or different and strange places I have seen, I realized that nothing is as promising and full of possibilities as a brilliant pink Midwestern sky.

Of course as a Libra, I deliberated and wanted to be fair in passing this torch onto 7 others. I chose each one for very, very different reasons:

P i g t o w n * D e s i g n

Midwestern Malaise

So Lovely

Comfort & Luxury

i heart strangers

The Adventures of Tartan Scot

Sweet Sunday Mornings

* Image of me, in fact, after 4 pints of Guinness.

Designer: Christopher Dresser (1834-1904)

"Maximum effect with minimum means" is a saying Christopher Dresser used to repeat to his students. A saying many of us during this recession can relate to. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Dresser believed in good, quality design for all.

Think of today's designers for Target: Martha Stewart, Michael Graves and Karim Rashid …
Christopher Dresser was the first to self-brand products offering quality at an affordable price.

"Fitness for purpose", Dresser also used to say, was the basis of good design. Bauhaus designers championed this principle which is also something we desperately are in need of today.

Dresser was enthusiastic about scientific progress and the machine-age which contrasted sharply with the pessimism of John Ruskin and William Morris. He believed existing scientific laws were destined to become outdated only to be replaced by newer, simpler laws. This belief led him to the theory that design should be simple.

In his lifetime, Dresser received quite a bit of recognition. Design firms carrying Dresser creations were cream of the crop. It is strange that this leading Victorian designer doesn't share the same acclaim as other designers such as Morris today.

Manufactured by Chubb & Co. for the Art Furnishers' Alliance, (1880-83);Ebonized & gilded mahogany --Victoria & Albert Museum

For whatever reason I've always skipped over the part about Christopher Dresser’s personal life. I made the erroneous assumption that he was not married. Surely someone so prolific couldn't possibly have time for a wife, or even a family. I was wrong. At the young age of 20 he married an "older" woman (points for him) named Thirza Perry, though she was only 24. Together they had thirteen -- 13 -- children.

I love his work. Something about every single piece I see time and time again sings. I wonder if 130 years from now, people will feel the same about Karim Rashid’s designs. Somehow I don’t think so. Take one moment and place Dresser’s theories and work within the context of his time. His designs and ideas stood apart from his contemporaries and were advanced for the time.

Born in Glasgow to non-conformist English parents, Dresser was a very talented child. His father was a tax collector moving his family frequently over the years. When Dresser was 13, he won a scholarship Government School of Design. This new art school was set up to improve the standard of British design by joining the disciplines of art and science.

During his attendance, Dresser met many of the most important design reformers of the day including his mentor: the utterly fantastic Owen Jones.

Dresser studied botany, specializing in the field. At the early age of 20, he began to lecture at the School of Design and wrote several articles for the Art Journal. He illustrated ten plates of plants to Owen Jones' Grammar of Ornament (1856) and received an honorary doctorate in botany in 1859. By 1860, working as a professor for the University of London, his application for Chair of Botany at was rejected. He was determined to forge a career as a designer and set up shop that same year. His fascination with the inherent symmetry and regularity of nature merged with the natural laws in his designs.

Blue Floral Urn (1875); Cloisonné frieze inspired by Iznik (Turkish) designs available at Jason Jacques Inc.. Image from ArtNet.

In the 1860s and 1870s, he worked as a freelance designer for Mintons Ltd. and J. Wedgwood and Sons. Many designs were inspired by ‘oriental’ cloisonné wares.

An unconventional thinker, Dresser broke new ground in design. A trip to Japan in 1876 strengthened his preference for form over ornament. He also procured items for Tiffany & Co. in New York.

Electroplate teapot (1878-1879) made by James Dixon and Sons. Collection of The British Museum.

He designed forms intended for mass production and ensured high-quality. Most of his metal work he designed for James Dixson and Sons Elkington & Co.

He designed textiles, wallpaper, silver hollowware, brassware, glass, pottery and furniture.

In 1880, he established The Art Furnishers' Alliance, which sold furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, fabrics and other items of his design -- some executed under his supervision. Unfortunately, by 1883, the firm went bankrupt and everything liquidated. Dresser had to move to the suburbs.

Tongue Vase, Christopher Dresser, c.1893. From “Design in the age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright" exhibition.

There was no one to continue his work after his death. In part, perhaps, because no one was as brilliant. The other part, perhaps, because he was alone in his mission to address design for all.

Dresser's designs reissued and currently available at Alessi.

To see more good stuff and read about his market click HERE.

Photographer: Irving Penn (1917-2009)

Irving Penn died today. He was 92.

When he was young, he wanted to become a painter and in 1938 graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). He wasn't very good though. However, in the 1930s he began creating personal photographs. And by 1943, he was hired as an assistant photographer at Vogue moving his way up and shooting over 150 covers for the magazine. He became one of the first photographers to marry commercial photography with art. No matter what subject he photographed -- from a model to a cigarette butt -- he isolated it with close-up graphic precision. The result icons, not just images.

Although he was known to mistrust perfect beauty, somehow he created it casting all things he photographed with a beautifully soft, even light. His subjects... casual and fluid and comfortable.

Met Museum

Dynamic yet restrained. Quiet and serene.

Veiled Face (Evelyn Tripp), 1949

He discarded all of the narrative trappings. He created an expressive visual vocabulary so unique. And when we, the viewer, gaze upon his images, they seem all our own.

My Brain

My brain in the past several days... (and NOT on drugs...) the result of too much work, a deadlined moved up, another next week and these days in 2009 flying by too quickly. A number of half written posts paitently waiting in the folders of my computer need to be completed and posted. Many thanks for those stopping by and especially to those who really do return. Hopefully, I'll be back up and running soon...

Pink

Breast Cancer.

My Grandmother died from it. She had a double mastectomy, but she still died. My Grandmother is my name sake. My given name. I never knew her. I listen closely to all the stories I hear about her. Advances in technology weren't as sophisticated back then. I wonder if she had a chance, how much I could have learned from her. I could have known her. Can one miss someone without even knowing them?

My doctor told me I needed to have a screening done. With a lot of cancer in my family, and arriving at that "age", it just is a wise thing to do. I still haven't made an appointment. I have some fears.

Test and misfortune that comes our way is not beyond the course of what others have had to face. Many of us have been let down in life and seen loved ones suffer without reason. We've been pushed to our limit and when we think we cannot take one more thing, that one more thing still comes. But we will always regret if we hadn't done something early. Because you won't wonder if it is too late. October is the month to make an appointment if anyone already hasn't. We need to promise ourselves. Because "The best protection is early detection".

National Cancer Institute

Susan G. Komen Foundation

Blog B-Day

Happy Birthday little Blog. You are one year old today.

and Happy Birthday to me. I better be one year wiser.

(top image French Vanilla Ooh Lah Lah cupcake from Cupcake à la Mode...)

Designer: Johnny Swing

Johnny Swing is a pseudonym for a furniture designer who has created a series of chairs using ordinary items as material for his work. He is a trained sculptor and licensed welder, and not a porn star as his name might suggest. (Did anyone else think that?)

Born in Salisbury, Connecticut in 1961, he studied at Skidmore College (I almost went there) and then the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has been working as a professional artist for the past two decades: first in NYC’s Greenwich Village and now on his farm in Vermont. His past experience includes creating furniture and interiors for corporate clients, as well as appearing on the Discovery Channel show, "Junkyard Wars” (2001-2003 seasons). His works can be found in the Robert Crowell Museum in Newfane, Vermont and the Storm King Arts Center, Mountainville, New York.

His interest in coins isn’t anything new. When he was five, he set up a toll both during his parent’s parties where guests would have to buy one of his drawings before they were allowed to pass through the hallway.

Johnny Swing has created his Obsessive Furniture Line which makes use of common, everyday materials like glass jars, nickels and coins repurposing them to give new life to ordinary objects.

He has also created a series of chairs created from coins -- functional furniture creations which also serve as unique pieces of sculpture.

QUARTER SIDE CHAIR (2002)
This is the fourth in his coin series, but my favorite. The coins are not welded together which lends to a clean, floating appearance. Instead, they are held together with a U-shaped metal wire which is welded at the back side edges of the coins. The legs are stainless steel.


Some critics have said he defacing money by using it in this manner. But there is something so slick, cool and shimmery about his chairs -- like a bonefish quietly swimming in shallow, brilliant tropical waters before it darts away. At first, they seem unyielding and cold, but there is something so tactile and intriguing. I’ve been reading that one of these chairs will set you back anywhere from $10,000 each to $25,000.

NICKEL COUCH (2001)

This sofa is the second in a series of furniture made from coins. Created from 7,000 nickels, it is fixed together with 35,000 welds and rests on a substructure of stainless truss work. It weighs about 125-lbs. Johnny Swing spends about 300 hours sculpting one of these. I read it retailed for $51,000 a few years back.

Above is the artist in his creation. However, there is something about this arm I find a little… threatening. Anyone see this too?


BUTTERFLY CHAIR (2002)
This is the third in the series: each chair uses 1500 half dollars and is created with 7000 welds. It looks comfortable, no doubt. I’d put a pillow behind my head, curl up sideways and flip on Bravo TV. (A bit reminiscent of Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair.)



You can purchase this one on Vivre for a small $59,000 – yes, the amount of 0s I typed are correct.

See more on his Johnny Swing site HERE ; And on Design Boom ; Top image from Metropolis Magazine click HERE to read an interview

Anyone? Thoughts?

More "Falling" Women

William Holman Hunt shocked his female viewers when he painted “The Awakening Conscience” in 1853. This melodrama of sin and recognition was meant to teach women a vital lesson about her role in society. Surely this gave cause for some women to be upset?

A new ideal of womanhood was developing in the nineteenth-century. Spurred on by the anxiety created by the Industrial Revolution, the expanding mercantile-industrial middle class needed to establish a new identity and self-justification. The world of commerce was becoming increasingly the play ground of corporations rather than individual entrepreneurs. (Does this sound familiar today?)

The Industrial Revolution promised material and cultural success. And it was delivered with the abuse of laborers, absence of personal tax and the marginalization of women. With the increase of money came vice and debauchery -- something the revolutionaries fought so hard against to win their independence from Britain -- which began to creep in and contaminate the new world. “Luxury,” one American writer urged Thomas Jefferson in 1782 “consisted of a dull, animal enjoyment which left minds stupefied and bodies enervated by wallowing forever in one continual puddle of voluptuousness.”

Women were advised to cover up their arms and legs. And after age 16, the wrists and ankles. This image dates from 1868. (I have no idea where I got this image, have had it for years, my apologies for lack of credit.)

Something had to change. Reform was needed. Instead of reorganizing and recognizing the greed of emerging capitalistic society, reform was controlled in the home. With economic changes came a new family dynamic. Men left the home to work while women stayed behind to care for the house and children. This is nothing new, this structure has worked in the past and it works for many today. However, back then a heavy burden was placed upon women to be moral guiders. This “new ideal of womanhood” created very particular attitudes about work and family. It was clearly defined and drilled into girls at a very young age. It essentially had four characteristics that any good and proper young woman should cultivate: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness.

Religion or piety was considered the core of woman’s virtue. It was to be the source of her strength. Young men looking for a wife were cautioned to first look for piety; if that was there, everything else would follow. Religion was considered the divine right of women. It was a gift of god. Her piousness gave her the strength to control the naughty and vulgar world of men. Women were warned not to let their literary or intellectual pursuits take them away from religion. If so, she could risk being barren.

From Godey's Lady's Book March 1850, Philadelphia. Quiet moment between friends before THE wedding night.

Purity was the essential piety to a young woman. Without it she was considered unnatural, unfeminine or worse no woman at all. She was considered a ‘fallen woman’. The marriage night was to be the single greatest event of a woman’s life. It was then when she “bestowed her greatest ‘treasure’ upon her husband”.


Mrs. John Farrar (Eliza was her name) wrote in a manual The Young Lady’s Friend lending advice how to avoid trouble: “Sit not with another in a place that is too narrow; read not out of the same book; let your eagerness to see anything induce you to place your head close to another person’s.” It was a huge success in America with reprints well into the 1890s.

Were women really buying into this?

“The Old, Old Story Was Told again at 3 O’Clock in the Morning” chromolithograph (although this version in b/w) unknown printer, c. 1870.

I was walking Billy one warm summer night. A cab came to a screeching halt and out poured three young girls from the car door, falling over one another into the street. They were also falling out of their dresses and shrieking in drunken obnoxious laughter. One girl couldn’t find her 4” high-heel shoe and another was uncertain if this was even the street where she lived. In the darkness, a sneer of disapproval came over my face followed by a cold shudder. I thought – wow - my friends and I certainly dressed differently at that age. And then a cold clammy sweat began to seep from my pores in horror knowing years ago I had untamed nights like that. I felt a little ill, but why? Would I have not blinked an eye if this was a taxi full of three young males? What if these were older men? Would that be any less appropriate? Was I judging these girls because they were girls? Haven’t we come a long way?

One girl could not get her key into the door and began doubting that she lived in the house. So she decided to take a nap in the front yard. The other two girls were laughing and dancing in the street. The cab driver, concerned, got out of his car and came up to me. He said: “Is this how young girls behave in your country?”

Smart or safe are not two words that came to my mind to describe this behavior. But I am certainly glad to be a woman living in this country. Although his comment did make me wonder: has conventional gendering behavior not changed that much? Today, how many husbands sit at home anxiously taping their foot as they await their drunken wives to teeter-totter home giggling at 3 O’clock in the morning? Women seem to just get annoyed when husbands come home from a late night out drinking -- they hog the bed, they smell and they miss the toilet. But men seem to fear when women behave this way. As if they will sully their reputation or run off you a much younger man... Double standard still prevails.

Guess the Date: Shoes

My mom was flipping through a box of old photographs the other day and found an article she had forgotten she tucked away. Any guesses as to the year it was written? (Click on image to read the article...)

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up: Rockingham Ware

For the women out there… Think about this: when was the last time you pulled out a household object such as a tea pot, water pitcher, baking dish, pie plate, or even a soap dish, and had to look at a pictorial image which reminded you to strive to be an “ideal” woman.

Today we have magazines pages to thumb through and commercial advertisements to watch on tv. Many of us pooh-pooh them as the messages are so trivial. We can close a magazine and turn off the tv. How many of us truly aspire to the media’s fabricated ‘idealized’ woman. Sure we buy the face creams, go to yoga to minimize the fatty texture on our bottoms, color the gray, and put on our spanx before a night out, but trying to look better doesn’t truly make us better women. We know this.

During Victorian America, women were bombarded with images of the ‘ideal’ woman. Problem was these images targeted core beliefs. Not superficial ones like today. They sent messages to women reminding them what a good woman was.

Pie Plate: Skinner, February 23, 2003

Rockingham pottery did just that. It was an inexpensive nineteenth-century ceramic widely used in America – an ordinary good. It performed a variety of tasks and played a variety of different roles in everyday life. But what is interesting is that much of Rockingham ware is pictorially embossed with an array of Victorian themes. The themes spoke of urbanization, nostalgia for country life and visually communicated hard messages. They depicted stories of men’s role in the world of hunting and woman’s role at home. How many men out there would like to have in their possession reinforcing pictorial images on every day wares such as a beer pitcher or a shaving mug of graphic hunting scenes?

10-paneled bulbous "manly" probably beer pitcher depicting a boar and stag hunt with hound handle. Awful to see those pronounced ribs -- feed the dog. Cowan’s, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 18, 2008.


Another pitcher of the same subject showing the other side. This one is attributed to E. & W. Bennett, Baltimore, Maryland, circa 1850. Cowan’s, June 21, 2008.

And how pleasant, hanging game... Garth’s Auctions, May 4, 2007
(Bummed the photo has been truncated.)

The embossed patterns on them maintained a cultural identity and the enactment of social roles. Although the ceramic was used at all social-class levels and in all types of communities from urban to rural, the images reinforced heavy expectations. Victorians were deeply concerned and conflicted about gender roles. And they were intensely materialistic people. For women, the theme of Rebekah at the Well was common. It reminded women to behave, serve and obey.

Garth's Auctions, Delaware, Ohio January 6, 2005.


D Marie's South Portland, Maine

Culture is a complex package of beliefs and behaviors. They are expressed through goods. Some of it we shape through our own preferences, and others forced upon us telling us what we need to choose and how we need to be.

These messages were seen over and over again every single day as the wares were used again and again. E. & W. Bennett pottery of Baltimore, Maryland is said to have first introduced Rebekah at the Well in the mid-nineteenth century and nearly all the potteries copied the pattern. In fact, by 1897 it was advertised in four sizes in the Sears Roebuck catalogue becoming the best and longest selling pattern in Rockingham history. The Rebekah at the Well theme embodied the Cult of True Womanhood which flourished during the mid-nineteenth century. (more of that in a post to come… as well as more Rockingham ware... for the darker, less mottled tortoise shell like glaze... Scatter ware, a colleague of mine likes to call it.)

Top image: Augustus Egg, Past and Present (1858)