Frelinghuysen, Alice Cooney — American Porcelain: 1770-1920

Book Very Good No Jacket 1st Edition The Museum of Modern Art, New York English text.; Hardcover (with dust jacket).; 24 x 29 cm.; 1.8 kg.; 320 pages with 221 illustrations, including 169 in colour, bibliography and index.; Used with signs of wear on the exterior and interior. The dust jacket shows edge wear, scuffs and scratches on the front cover, spine and back cover. Minor signs of wear on the interior.; Catalogue from the exhibition American Porcelain: 1770-1920, held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 8 April 1989 until 25 June 1989.; American Porcelain: 1770-1920 is the first comprehensive book to be written on this provocative subject. It contains an account of the development of the American medium from its beginnings through the unique examples of art pottery conceived in the first quarter of the twentieth century. In these pages are discussed more than a hundred and thirty masterpieces that illustrate the progress of a national accomplishment and chronicle the entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and artisans who brought it to fruition. For the most part, the examples are listed in chronological order, but two offshoots of true porcelain - parian and Belleek - are accorded separate sections. The Centennial Exposition, held in Philadelphia in 1876, marked the debut of the porcelain of the United States on the world stage. It was also the pivotal point in the industry's development, since in preparing for the fair, the nation's ceramics manufacturers sought to produce wares that would display an outpouring of patriotism and pride of accomplishment. For the first time, they confronted the necessity of breaking away from the influence of European counterparts and developing products that unmistakably display their American origins. A group of those men, joining together in January 1875 to form the National Potters Association, resolved to create for their countrymen new designs that would proclaim to the world at large "the extent to which the ceramic art has been carried by American manufacturers." In that they succeeded, though subsequently American decorators reverted for a time to Continental themes and variations. Their struggle to rid themselves of that foreign domination paralleled their forefathers' attempts to establish a free nation. While the battle was not immediately won, the story of the artistic attempt is a glorious litany of superb objects, each speaking of the growing confidence and maturity of American craftsmen, many of them immigrants who enriched their new country with their foreign training and expertise. The final section of the book explores in depth the matchless work of the art-potters Kate Sears, M. Louise McLaughlin, and Adelaide Alsop Robineau. In marveling at both their technical achievements-carved decoration and new and varied forms of glazes and their inspired creativity, who could doubt that Benjamin Franklin's hopes for a domestic porcelain industry have been realized, and in so illustrious a manner that even he could not have dreamed of.