{"product_id":"hand-thrown-terracotta-cachepot-in-weathered-green-paint-turned-collar-with-tooled-groove-coarse-grogged-body-c-1900-1925","title":"Hand-Thrown Terracotta Cachepot in Weathered Green Paint, Turned Collar with Tooled Groove, Coarse Grogged Body, c. 1900–1925","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA small tapered pot in coarse red clay, wearing the remains of an old green paint.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body rises from a narrow foot and flares outward to a \u003cstrong\u003eheavy turned collar\u003c\/strong\u003e at the rim, with a \u003cstrong\u003etooled groove\u003c\/strong\u003e cut in just beneath it. \u003cstrong\u003eThrowing rings\u003c\/strong\u003e run round the collar and again round the lower body, where the potter's fingers came up through the wall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe clay is not refined. It is full of \u003cstrong\u003ewhite and grey inclusions and small hard pebbles\u003c\/strong\u003e, and where the surface has weathered back those inclusions now stand proud of it, so the whole pot reads as gritty rather than smooth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003egreen paint survives in islands\u003c\/strong\u003e — a broad band round the collar, a ring at the foot, patches across the body — and has gone entirely from the exposed curves in between, leaving bare buff-orange clay. It is thickest and best preserved where the form is recessed: in the groove under the collar, and across the whole underside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe base is \u003cstrong\u003esolid, with no drainage hole\u003c\/strong\u003e. The interior is bare clay, pale and dry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA hand-thrown flowerpot is not a style. It is a date.\u003c\/strong\u003e Garden pottery was made by men called throwers, paid by the piece, who turned out \u003cstrong\u003e1,200 to 1,400 pots a day\u003c\/strong\u003e to earn a living — roughly four small pots a minute, all day. That was simply how pots were made, and it stayed that way longer than most trades. Mechanisation began creeping into the potteries at the turn of the twentieth century, but the majority of pots were still thrown by hand well past 1900.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThen the machines caught up.\u003c\/strong\u003e Large works with clay-extraction machinery could push out more than \u003cstrong\u003e60,000 pieces a day\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the hand shops could not answer that. Commercial hand-thrown pot production had largely ended by \u003cstrong\u003e1939\u003c\/strong\u003e; a few houses held on — Samuel South \u0026amp; Sons to \u003cstrong\u003e1960\u003c\/strong\u003e — and the industry finished the job in the \u003cstrong\u003e1970s\u003c\/strong\u003e by leaving clay altogether for plastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe clay narrows it further.\u003c\/strong\u003e Hand throwing on its own is not conclusive, because Mediterranean workshops never stopped. What is conclusive is the body: coarse, unscreened, carrying angular grit and whole small pebbles. That is clay dug locally and prepared the old way. Both the industrial trade and the modern handmade trade use refined, screened bodies, for the simple reason that a pebble in the wall is where a pot cracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThere is no drainage hole, and that is deliberate.\u003c\/strong\u003e This was made as a \u003cem\u003ecachepot\u003c\/em\u003e — an outer pot, to stand a growing pot inside — rather than as a pot to grow in. It is also why any paint survives at all: a cachepot lives on a porch, a step or a sill, not buried to its rim in wet soil.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGreen is the oldest colour in the garden.\u003c\/strong\u003e Painted woodwork, painted iron, painted pots — a soft grey-green was the default finish for anything that stood outdoors, and it was applied to terracotta for the same reason it was applied to a gate: to smarten it and to slow the weather down. The weather won here, slowly, over a long time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is \u003cstrong\u003eno maker's mark, stamp or impressed number\u003c\/strong\u003e anywhere on the pot, and it is offered \u003cstrong\u003eunattributed\u003c\/strong\u003e. Dated on the hand throwing, the turned collar and tooled groove, the coarse unscreened body, and the depth to which the surface has eroded back around its own inclusions: \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1900–1925\u003c\/strong\u003e.\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;\"\u003eTerracotta cachepot — an outer pot with no drainage hole, made to hold a growing pot rather than to plant into. Approx. 7 in high, 7 in across the rim, 5 in across the foot.\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;\"\u003eTapered body on a narrow foot rising to a heavy turned collar with a tooled groove beneath it; throwing rings visible at the collar and lower body; solid base\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;\"\u003eCoarse unglazed red earthenware with visible white and grey inclusions and small pebbles, hand-thrown, with an applied green paint finish over the exterior\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;\"\u003eNone. No stamp, impressed number, label or country-of-origin mark. Offered unattributed.\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;\"\u003ec. 1900–1925. Dated on the hand throwing, the turned collar and tooled groove, and the coarse unscreened clay body — hand-thrown commercial garden pottery was displaced by machine production from the turn of the century and had largely ended by 1939.\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;\"\u003eGood honest weathered condition, sold as a weathered garden antique. The pot is sound and stands level, with no through-crack and no repair or restoration. \u003cstrong\u003eExpect heavy paint loss across the body\u003c\/strong\u003e — that is the character of the piece, not a fault — along with surface erosion that leaves the clay gritty, inclusions standing proud, small chips and soft losses around the rim and foot edges, and a dry mineral bloom inside. 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\u003eWeathered paint over old terracotta is one of the few textures that cannot be bought new, and decorators spend real money chasing it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason is that the colour is doing two things at once. The green has gone soft and chalky; the clay underneath has gone warm and dry; and the two sit against each other in irregular patches that no finisher would think to lay out. It reads instantly as old, from across a room, without a single label.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also the easiest kind of planter to live with, because you never have to plant it. Drop a plastic nursery pot straight inside — a fern, a geranium, a rosemary, a small orchid — and lift it out again when it is spent. No repotting, no soil against the clay, no root ball to wrestle with in a year's time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDry, it is just as good. Wooden spoons by a stove, paintbrushes on a work table, kindling and matches by a hearth, cut stems with a jar inside. On a kitchen shelf, a garden bench, a hall console or a bathroom counter it does the same job: it brings one warm rough thing into a room that is probably otherwise smooth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA note on care, and this one is short, because the temptation with an old pot is to improve it. \u003cstrong\u003eDo not scrub it and do not wash it.\u003c\/strong\u003e The paint is loose, it is the entire value of the object, and a stiff brush and water will take a good deal of it off in a minute. Brush loose dust off gently with a soft dry brush and stop there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDo not seal it or varnish it.\u003c\/strong\u003e A clear coat over weathered paint turns the matt chalky surface glassy and dark, and the effect is immediate and permanent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDo not plant directly into it\u003c\/strong\u003e — there is no drainage hole, so soil in it will stay wet, and a saturated porous body pushes paint off from behind. Use an inner pot with a saucer under it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKeep it out of freezing wet. A porous pot that has taken up water will split when that water turns to ice, and this one has already given a century to the weather.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48044862439529,"sku":"VE-0720","price":175.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_2150.jpg?v=1789190865","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/hand-thrown-terracotta-cachepot-in-weathered-green-paint-turned-collar-with-tooled-groove-coarse-grogged-body-c-1900-1925","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}