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American China Manufactory Porcelain
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Status: |
Missing |
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Date: |
1770 AD - 1772 AD |
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Artist: |
American China Manufactory |
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Origin: |
Philadelphia, Pennyslvania |
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Media: |
Soft-paste porcelain |
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Measurements: |
Various |
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Last Known: |
Various |
What is it?Porcelain pieces made by the American China Manufactory of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the company's short existence from 1770 to 1772.Why is it important?The American China Manufactory was the very first factory to produce porcelain on a large scale in America. Although the factory produced porcelain for at least two years only nineteen intact pieces of their work are known to survive.Description:See illustrations, especially that of the Bonnin and Morris "P" mark.History:In the Pennsylvania Journal of January 10, 1771 the American China Manufactory announced the production of their first porcelain pieces for sale. Partners Gousse Bonnin and George Anthony Morris had worked for years and invested a fortune to build the first porcelain factory in America at Philadelphia.
Today we take porcelain for granted. Millions of pieces are manufactured worldwide each year for every taste and pocketbook. But in the 18th century it was an important luxury item, a civilized way to serve food and drink, and a way to show off your wealth and sophistication. By 1770, Americans had been sending their money to Europe and China in order to buy this coveted item for more than 100 years. Having a porcelain factory established on American soil was big news and a point of pride.
Bonnin and Morris's factory produced their first pieces in 1770 as they readied their factory for full-scale production. Unfortunately, the business was short-lived and by November 1772 Bonnin had put the factory up for sale and left for England with his family. Evidence suggests that porcelain may have been made there intermittently, while the factory was still for sale, as late as October 1774.
Despite the fact that porcelain was made in quantity by the American China Manufactory for almost two years, today only nineteen intact examples of their work survive (see listing). None of these surviving pieces are of their popular tea sets or punch bowls which are known from advertisements and from archaeological fragments found at the factory site and at sites around Philadelphia, and also from the company's advertisements in newspapers of the period.
One of the mysteries that baffle scholars is that Bonnin and Morris do not seem to have made mugs or tankards. Both were very popular products for their English competitors who they modeled their company after. Yet they do not advertise them and not even fragments of either from have been found.
What survives and what does not is a result of how the pieces were used. Six of the surviving nineteen pieces are pickle stands, a form that the company certainly made relatively few of. But pickle stands were expensive, showy pieces used for entertaining and display and so handled carefully and protected. Tea services, however, were used regularly and far more likely to be broken and thrown out.
Punch bowls, like pickle stands, were entertaining pieces but punch was very popular in the late 18th century and the bowls it was served in were relatively large and fragile. This may explain why no punch bowls survive.
Incredibly, all nineteen of the known surviving Bonnin and Morris pieces were brought together in one room at the Philadelphia Museum of art for an exhibition in 2008.Clues:The only clues we have to go by are what we learn by studying the 19 known surviving examples of Bonnin and Morris porcelain. We must look for pieces that resemble these and that bear the distinctive "P" mark.
Archeology shows that the American China Manufactory's products were well dispersed within Philadelphia, but we know that they were also sent elsewhere. Benjamin Franklin himself had his wife send him two sauceboats from the factory while he was living in London. Finding these Franklin sauceboats would be a huge contribution to history.Special thanks to the Philadelphia Museum of Art
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Sauceboat from Bonnin & Morris's American China Manufactory. Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The mark found on American China Manufactory porcelain. Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art.
An openwork basket by the American China Manufactory. Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Pickle stand with the initials of John and Elizabeth Cadwalader. Private collection. .
Five types, or forms, are known to survive:
Openwork fruit baskets (7)
Sauceboats (3)
Covered openwork boxes (2)
Pickle dish (1)
Two-tiered pickle stands (6) Links and SourcesSOURCES: Hood, Graham. Bonnin and Morris of Philadelphia: The First American Porcelain Manufactory, 1770-1772. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1972. [Reprinted in its entirety with new introduction and photography in Ceramics in America, 2007] Hunter, Rob, Editor. Ceramics in America 2007. Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2007. Hunter, Robert and Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley. "Recent Scholarship on the American China Manufactory of Bonnin and Morris." The Magazine Antiques Vol. CLXXIII, NO. 2 (February 2008): 66-71. LEARN MORE: Exhibition: Colonial Philadelphia Porcelain: The Art of Bonnin and Morris, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 8 to June 1, 2008. |
