This pitcher is the product of the American Pottery Company, a firm formed in 1833 by David Henderson, who had earlier established the D. & I. Henderson Company as the successor to the failing Jersey Porcelain and Earthenware Company. The factory introduced to America sophisticated English-style pottery modeled by such designers as Daniel Greatbach, who joined the firm in 1839. The pottery was also the first to produce large quantities of refined earthenware using patterned molds.  Here the finely detailed molded ornament combines exotic Gothic or Moorish arches with naturalistic roses suggestive of the eclectic romantic taste at mid-century. The paneled hexagonal form was also popular at this time.

Related examples: Watkins 1946, p. 392, fig. 16, with a Rockingham glaze; New Jersey Pottery 1972, no. 34, with a yellow glaze.

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.