{"product_id":"hand-thrown-studio-pottery-charger-cobalt-sponged-rim-with-painted-ivy-trails-american-contemporary","title":"Hand-Thrown Studio Pottery Charger, Cobalt Sponged Rim with Painted Ivy Trails, American, Contemporary","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA wide, shallow charger, thrown on the wheel rather than pressed — the potter's spiral runs out from the centre of the well in a clean series of concentric ridges you can feel with a fingertip, and the rim rises and falls very slightly the way a thrown rim does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe decoration works in two registers. A band of dense cobalt sponge-work runs the entire rim edge and is carried right over the lip onto the underside. Inside it, on the flat of the rim, sit two hand-painted sprays placed opposite one another: a trailing ivy vine drawn in a fine looping line, with one deep cobalt leaf at the centre of each and paler blue leaves opening off the stem.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe ground between them is left plain — a warm off-white with the throwing rings showing through the glaze — which is what lets the two sprays read as drawing rather than as pattern.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe underside is glazed to a broad unglazed foot in a pale speckled stoneware body, stamped at the centre with a circular maker's mark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe mark is the whole story here, and it is worth being exact about what it does and does not tell us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt is a circular stamp around a central device. The ring is legible in part: it begins \u003cstrong\u003eCONTEMPO\u003c\/strong\u003e and ends \u003cstrong\u003ePOTTERY.COM\u003c\/strong\u003e. The four or five characters between are blotched where the stamp did not take fully, and we are \u003cstrong\u003enot going to invent a reading for them\u003c\/strong\u003e. The piece is offered unattributed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBut the part that is legible settles the date on its own. \u003cstrong\u003eThe mark contains a web address.\u003c\/strong\u003e No potter put a URL into a maker's stamp before the web existed to point at, which places this firmly in the modern era — late 1990s at the very earliest, and realistically more recent than that. It is described here simply as \u003cstrong\u003econtemporary\u003c\/strong\u003e, because a narrower range would be a guess.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThat matters more than it might sound, because sponge-decorated blue-and-white is a look that reads old at a glance and is very easily sold as something it is not. \u003cstrong\u003eThis is a modern American studio piece, not antique spongeware\u003c\/strong\u003e, and it is not related to the Italian sponged ware it superficially resembles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eWhat it genuinely is, is hand work. The throwing rings are real, the sponging was done by hand with a sea sponge, and the ivy sprays are painted freehand — the two are similar but not identical, which is the signature of a brush rather than a transfer. A pottery that stamps its own web address into the clay is a working business that wants to be found, and this came off a wheel rather than out of a press.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCharger or shallow serving bowl\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAmerican studio pottery. Unattributed — the circular stamp is only partly legible.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eWheel-thrown wide shallow form with a broad flat rim and visible throwing rings through the well, on an unglazed foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCobalt sponge-work banding the full rim and carried over the lip, with two freehand-painted trailing ivy sprays on the flat of the rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eGlazed stoneware, pale speckled body\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCircular stamp to the base: legible as CONTEMPO … POTTERY.COM around a central device; the middle characters are not legible\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eContemporary. The web address in the maker's mark places it no earlier than the late 1990s. \u003cstrong\u003eNot an antique and not antique spongeware.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eFair, and it must be read before buying. \u003cstrong\u003eThe charger carries cracks running in from the rim\u003c\/strong\u003e — one at roughly the nine o'clock position and a second toward the lower left — visible from the face. They are structural rather than glaze crazing. \u003cstrong\u003eFor that reason this is offered as a decorative and display piece only: it is not sold as functional serviceware and should not be used for food or liquid.\u003c\/strong\u003e Otherwise the glaze is bright and glossy, the cobalt is strong and unfaded, the sponging and both painted ivy sprays are complete, the maker's stamp is legible where it took, and the piece sits flat. No chips or losses. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003ePriced as what it is — a damaged decorative piece rather than a working charger — this is an inexpensive way to get a large hand-thrown, hand-painted surface onto a wall or a shelf, and scale is the thing that is genuinely hard to buy cheaply.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOn a plate stand, propped on an open dresser, or hung flat, it does the job a small framed picture cannot: the cobalt rim reads as a ring of colour from across a room, and the two ivy sprays give the eye somewhere to land up close. The cracks run in from the rim and are largely lost against the sponged band at normal viewing distance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBlue and white also never has to be matched. It will sit with any other blue-and-white already in the house, and against cream plaster, warm wood, black metal or open shelving it is an easy, familiar note.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care and use. \u003cstrong\u003eDo not serve food or liquid on this piece.\u003c\/strong\u003e The cracks pass through the body, which means they will hold water and anything else that gets into them, and no amount of washing clears a crack in stoneware. Treat it as wall and shelf decoration only.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDo not wash it in a dishwasher and do not soak it.\u003c\/strong\u003e Water drawn into an open crack, then heated and cooled repeatedly, is precisely what turns two cracks into a piece in three parts. Dust it dry, or wipe the face with a barely damp cloth and dry it straight away. Use no abrasive pad and no cream cleaner, which will scratch the glaze and dull the cobalt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIf you hang it, use a properly sized spring wire plate hanger with the arms padded, and seat the arms on sound rim, away from the cracked sections — a hanger tensioned across a crack is what finishes the job. On a stand, let the weight sit on the foot rather than the rim. Keep it out of direct sun and away from a heat source.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48032127025257,"sku":"VE-0682","price":168.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_1895.jpg?v=1789063611","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/hand-thrown-studio-pottery-charger-cobalt-sponged-rim-with-painted-ivy-trails-american-contemporary","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}