{"product_id":"vintage-holiday-designs-avocado-drip-glaze-tea-canister-c-1964-1982","title":"Vintage Holiday Designs Avocado Drip Glaze Tea Canister, c. 1964–1982","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lidded ceramic tea canister in the olive-avocado drip glaze that defined American kitchens for about fifteen years. The body is a plain straight-sided cylinder. The lid is a wide dome rising to a squat mushroom knob, with a deep flange underneath that drops down inside the jar and seats it firmly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze is what carries it. Glossy olive over a cream body, running darker as it moves, so it breaks to a smoky brown-black along the rim, across the shoulder of the lid and around the lower edge where it pooled and ran. Fine dark specks are suspended all through it. The whole surface carries a close network of crazing with age settled into the lines, the kind you only get from decades rather than from a finish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTEA is lettered across the front in a tall narrow serif in near-black, set large enough to fill most of the width of the jar. It is the only decoration on the piece and it does not want for any more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLow on the wall near the foot, impressed into the clay and glazed over, the piece is marked \u003cem\u003eholiday designs\u003c\/em\u003e in lower case with \u003cem\u003eH4019\u003c\/em\u003e and a copyright symbol beside \u003cem\u003eU.S.A.\u003c\/em\u003e The underside of the lid carries a separate mould number, 2484.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mark settles this, which is better than dating it by its colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHoliday Designs was a pottery in Sebring, Ohio, on South 12th Street at Baugh Avenue. Eugene T. Meskill bought the plant in 1964 and gave it that name, and it produced canisters, cookie jars, teapots and accessory ware for the kitchen and gift trade. Meskill held it until 1982, when it was sold to Designer Accents of New Jersey, which was itself later bought by Richard C. Durstein of Pittsburgh. In the consolidation that followed, the lower-priced Holiday Designs lines were discontinued. Anything carrying this mark was therefore made between 1964 and 1982, and that is the date offered here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glaze narrows it further within that run. Avocado green, alongside harvest gold, ran American kitchens from roughly the middle 1960s until the end of the 1970s, on appliances, countertops, linens and every piece of housewares that could be made in it. It arrived with the shift away from the clinical white and pastel kitchens of the 1950s, saturated the market through the early seventies, and was gone by about 1980, displaced by almond and a return to white. A canister in this exact olive belongs to the middle of the Holiday Designs run rather than either end of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe drip glaze is the other half of the story. Flowing glazes that run and pool and break dark at the edges are very old, and American art potteries had been chasing them since the turn of the century, but by the 1960s the effect had been industrialised and turned out at volume for exactly this trade. The result is a piece that looks handmade at arm's length and reveals itself as production ware when you pick it up. That is not a criticism. It is precisely why so much of it was bought and why it reads so well now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is also a survivor on its own. Canisters were sold in graduated sets, usually flour, sugar, coffee and tea, and the tea canister is the smallest and the one most likely to be separated from its siblings over fifty years of kitchens and moves. Finding one intact with its correct lid is more of a coincidence than it sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLidded ceramic kitchen canister\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaker\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHoliday Designs, Sebring, Ohio\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGlossy olive-avocado drip glaze breaking dark brown at rim, shoulder and foot\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLettering\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTEA across the front in a tall narrow serif, near-black\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1964–1982\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eholiday designs, H4019, copyright symbol and U.S.A. impressed near the foot; mould number 2484 on the underside of the lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e8.5 in. with the lid\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDiameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and complete with its original lid, which seats correctly. Crazing throughout the glaze with age darkening in the lines, which is expected and not a flaw in a piece of this date. No chips, cracks or restoration found. The unglazed base carries iron staining and kiln deposits from firing. Interior clean.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAvocado has come all the way back around, and this is the honest version of it rather than a reproduction reaching for the look. The glaze does the work: warm olive that turns almost black where it ran, glossy enough to catch a kitchen light, and a colour that sits beautifully against wood, brass, cream ceramic and terracotta.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse it. It holds tea, coffee beans, sugar or utensils, and the flanged lid seats tightly enough to keep it honest. Failing that, it is a good-looking object on an open shelf that happens to have a lid.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48085479653481,"sku":"VE-1672","price":285.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/IMG_4799.jpg?v=1789791159","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/vintage-holiday-designs-avocado-drip-glaze-tea-canister-c-1964-1982","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}