Dear Helaine and Joe:
What can you tell me about this piece of pottery, which is marked “Roseville U. S. A. 411-4?” As you can see in the photographs, it is brownish with greenish overtones around the handles, leaf and berries. Any information would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Unsigned
Dear Unsigned:
Today’s item came in as a computer disk, which we hesitated to open, not knowing what the heck might be on it (we didn’t want to give our computer a “bad cold,” or heaven forbid, a virus).
But finally we did open it and found this attractive small jardiniere, which we have seen also called a planter. One person on eBay called it a “candy dish” (we smiled). The maker is obvious because of the big “Roseville” signature on the bottom.
This is for a pottery company that was founded in 1890 by J.F. Weaver in Roseville, Ohio. The company was incorporated in 1892 with George Young, a former company salesman, among the principals. Their products at that time were mainly utilitarian household items such as stoneware flowerpots.
Under Young’s guidance, the company expanded, buying Midland Pottery, and by 1896, Young was in complete control of the company. In 1898, the company bought Clark Stoneware Company in Zanesville, Ohio, and moved the headquarters there.
In 1900, the company started making art pottery in competition with nearby Weller Pottery and Rookwood Pottery, which was located in Cincinnati. The first art lines were named “Rozane” – a combination of Zanesville and Roseville – and closely resembled the brown glazed wares made by Rookwood, Weller, Owens and others (Rookwood was the originator – the rest were copycats).
Other Roseville “Rozane” lines included “Egypto” (matte green – in the mode of ancient Egyptian pottery), “Mongol” (intense red, Chinese-inspired shapes), “Mara” (metallic luster with patterns), and “Woodland” (stippled background with floral design, glossy leaves). There were also other lines all hand done and so expensive to make that by 1910 or so the company was moving toward more molded designs that required less individual artistic decoration.
The jardiniere in today’s question is in the “Bushberry” pattern, which according to most recent sources originated in 1941 but the text we consulted (Bob Huxford, Mike Nickel and Sharon Huxford’s 1976 The Collector’s Encyclopedia of Roseville Pottery) says 1948. We suspect the 1941 date is probably more accurate due to research in the last almost 50 years.
Collectors of midcentury modern (which is hot right now) find many of Roseville’s molded art wares from this period to be quite interesting and very collectible. “Bushberry” came in three color combinations: blue (the most desirable), green and brown.
As for value, this small Roseville “Bushberry” made sometime between 1941 and 1954 when the company closed should be value in the $75 to $100 range.
