Rockingham Pottery: Ceramics in Nineteenth-Century America opens on March 7, 2013, as a new installation in the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, University of Richmond Museums. In 2012, the University Museums received a gift of more than 200 pieces of Rockingham pottery from New York collectors Emma and Jay Lewis. The gift establishes the largest museum study collection of American Rockingham pottery on the East Coast. The selection featured in the installation includes both utilitarian and decorative ceramics, which highlight the range of styles, glazes, and materials found in American Rockingham ware and nineteenth-century ceramics.

Evolving from English roots to designs originating in America, the term “Rockingham” describes a dark brown glaze created by potters in Yorkshire, England, working at the estate of the Marquis of Rockingham. American potters, who immigrated from England in the early 1800s, adapted the glaze and its application techniques to the tastes of the new American market, where it quickly became one of the most popular wares of the nineteenth century.

Prominent modellers with works highlighted in the exhibition are Daniel Greatbatch and Charles Coxon. Greatbatch and Coxon were both English modellers who immigrated to the United States in the first quarter of the nineteenth-century. The installation is organized into themes that illustrate various glaze applications and the decorative motifs incorporated in the pieces. Two important works featured in the exhibition are a hound handle hunt pitcher modelled by Daniel Greatbatch and a Rebekah at the Well teapot modelled by Charles Coxon. These forms represent two of the most popular Rockingham designs produced, which were often copied by other manufacturers. The Rebekah at the Well teapot featured concepts of religion and womanhood, displaying important nineteenth-century American ideals through the imagery on the teapot. The hound-handled pitcher was a commonly copied design among Rockingham manufacturers and incorporated various popular hunt scenes.

Organized by the University of Richmond Museums the installation was curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums and Richard Barnett, ’13, psychology major, University of Richmond.