- Book Flask
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This flask represents the smallest of the novelty book-shaped bottles produced at the Fenton pottery. That they were a fairly standard product is evidenced by their appearance on the 1852 price list. The mark, one usually reserved for Parian wares, and only known on a few other pieces of colored glazed ware, indicates that the Bayou Bend flask is a rare and early example.
Related examples: See Barret 1958, p. 316, pl. 411; Ketchum 1983, no. 283; MMA (acc. no. 40.150.310).
Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.
Provenance[George S. McKearin, Hoosick Falls, New York]; [George Abraham and Gilbert May Antiques, West Granville, Massachusetts]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1957; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Exhibition History"Fill the Other Bowl, Boys!," Texarkana Historical Society, Texarkana, TX, September 1, 1993–October 16, 1993.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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