Gilt and Enamel-Decorated Porcelain Pitcher

Object Details

Related Objects

Hand-Decorated Porcelain Pitcher

Tucker, William Ellis
ca. 1830-1838

ceramic; porcelain with overglaze enamels (en grisaille)

Object Essay

In 1852 Thomas Tucker reflected upon the evolution of his brother’s facility for making porcelain: “My father had a china store on Market Street [Philadelphia], and in the year 1816, he built William a kiln in the yard back of the store, when William commenced painting upon the white ware in the store, and burning it in the kiln.”^{1_{Letter from Thomas Tucker, November 27, 1852, in the Journal of the Franklin Institute (January 1953): 43, quoted in Clement, 70. The information given in the entry on Tucker’s enterprise is summarized in Clement, 70–82; Tucker China, passim; Curtis 1973, 339–74.}} William’s experiments in firing clay pieces were successful in 1826, first in “queensware” (probably a white earthenware) and later in porcelain. “After many experiments and much labor,” continued Thomas, “he was successful in making a very beautiful porcelain in a small way.”

These early accomplishments continued. Beginning in 1831, William Tucker expanded the business by acquiring land and mineral rights for raw materials from New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. He moved and enlarged his operation, which eventually included some forty American and foreign workers. The necessary capital came largely from partnerships bought by three wealthy Philadelphia Quakers for their sons, John N. Bird (1826–27), John Hulme (1828), and Alexander Wills Hemphill (beginning in 1831). Hemphill’s father, Judge Joseph Hemphill, continued as the principal owner after William Tucker died suddenly of a fever in 1832. 

Tucker’s factory is often noted as the first truly successful venture in making porcelain in the United States with American materials. Despite the longevity of Tucker’s manufacturing concern and the quantities of wares produced there, his distribution was limited primarily to the mid-Atlantic region, from New Jersey to Maryland. 

In 1832, when Thomas Tucker recorded the shapes and decoration then in production, more than 140 different forms were being made, including table pieces and vases.^{2_{Curtis 1973, 358–61; see p. 366 for an illustration of “Vase pitcher,” no. 7 from Thomas Tucker’s notebooks.}} The most characteristic of these was the “Vase pitcher,” number seven in the shape book, represented in the Collection by this pitcher with polychrome enamel decorations and by another example in monochrome enamels, each typical of the factory (see Acc. No. 73.8).^{3_{For the monochrome pitcher, see Conger and Rollins, Treasures of State, cat. no. 181 (Acc. No. 73.83).}}

Ellen Paul Denker and Bert R. Denker

Excerpted from Jonathan L. Fairbanks. Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State. New York: Rizzoli, 2003.