[Image above] Roseville Pottery Company applied its patterns to thousands of shapes, including cornucopia vases, seen center, which were popular in the 1930s and ’40s. Credit: Antiquing Adventures, YouTube
Nothing quite symbolizes Thanksgiving like the cornucopia, the large horn-shaped container that represents abundance and nourishment. These containers are typically wicker baskets, but if we take a trip down memory lane to the 1930s and ’40s, we’ll discover the history of an Ohio-based pottery manufacturer who specialized in ceramic versions of the “horn of plenty.”
The Roseville Pottery Company was one of three major art pottery studios located in Ohio around the turn of the 20th century. According to the company’s website, Roseville Pottery was incorporated in 1892, but it started producing stoneware two years earlier after purchasing an old J.B. Owens Pottery factory in Roseville, Ohio.
In 1895, Roseville Pottery purchased Midland Pottery and began producing large amounts of artistic garden accessories. In 1898, it purchased the Clark Stoneware Company and began operations in Zanesville, Ohio, focused on purely utilitarian painted ware.
In 1904, Roseville Pottery underwent a transformation in response to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. Unlike the Saint Louis Exposition held in previous years, the Arts Department allowed exhibitions and prizes for applied arts, including pottery.
All of Roseville’s submissions to the applied arts competition were rejected for not meeting judge requirements. So instead, Roseville created an exhibition for the Manufacturing Palace to showcase the process for creating works of pottery. The process of creating this exhibition “brought greater strength and diversity to the product lines of the company, and added arts and crafts to their resume,” according to the Roseville website.
During the next four decades, a series of art directors led the creation of more than 100 art lines that were applied to hundreds of shapes. In particular, Frank Ferrell, who became the art director in 1918, designed numerous art lines that remain recognizable even today. For example, the popular Pinecone line (1935) is credited with saving the company from bankruptcy and reportedly holds the record for highest selling art line from any U.S. pottery studio.
Example of Roseville pottery featuring the Pinecone design. Credit: cotmj, DeviantArt (CC BY-ND 3.0)
According to a Wisconsin State Farmer article, the cornucopia was a popular shape during the 1930s and 1940s for Roseville art lines. In the picture below, you’ll see the cornucopia alongside other vases offered by Roseville.
The cornucopia vase is fourth from the left. Credit: Bob Sinclair, Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
As with other pottery companies, cheaper imports from Japan started to undermine Roseville sales. In 1954, the company along with all its designs and plants were sold and ceased operation.
Even though Roseville pottery stopped being produced, the patterns remained very popular. As a result, replicas and counterfeits were common, and even today remain a challenge for collectors searching for vintage Roseville pieces at auction.
In 2017, The Kings Fortune, an arts dealer based in Fishers, Ind., was granted trademarks by the U.S. Patent Office for both Roseville and Roseville Pottery. On the Roseville website, The Kings Fortune says it was “frustrated” by the proliferation of counterfeits and obtained the trademarks to put an end to these “unscrupulous practices.”
Though only very limited production is required to obtain the trademarks, “We are continuing to grow and expand the business…[to expose] an entire new generation to the works of the company throughout its rich history,” The Kings Fortune states.
Learn more about Roseville—and how to identify counterfeits—in the video below.
