QUESTION: Several years ago, I purchased an antique washstand set at a local antique show. The pieces are marked “K.T.A.K. China,” but I’ve been unable to find the pottery that made it. I believe the set dates to sometime in the mid to late 19th century. Can you tell me who made this set and also about the origins of these sets?
ANSWER: Your washstand was definitely made between 1850 and 1860 by the Knowles, Taylor, and Knowles China Company of East Liverpool, Ohio. Isaac Watts Knowles and Isaac Harvey, who operated a store boat along the Ohio River selling pottery, established a pottery in 1854. Knowles bought out Harvey in 1856. He formed Knowles, Taylor, and Knowles in 1870 when his son-in-law John N. Taylor and his son Homer S. Knowles joined the firm. But the company didn’t become incorporated until 1891, at which time it employed 700 workers who operated 35 kilns.
Before modern plumbing, people washed themselves daily at washstands, using washstand sets. Typically, each bedroom contained a washstand cabinets or two-tiered table on which a person could set a wash bowl on the top and a water pitcher on the bottom. Commode washstands had a chamber pot stored in a small cabinet in the bottom.
Most early washstands, usually made of oak, had a round cut out in the top shelf in which a large ceramic basin rested. During the second half of the 19th century, manufacturers produced washstands with flat tops and by the 1880s, many came with white marble tops.
Pottery companies around the world began producing wash bowls and pitcher sets around the last quarter of the 18th century. But the washstand sets, at least the ones seen in antique shops and shows, date from the early 19th to the early 20th century. Typically, these sets consisted of seven items—a large bowl or basin, a large pitcher, a small pitcher, a chamber pot with a lid, a cup with a handle for rinsing after brushing teeth, a cup without a handle to hold tooth brushes and straight razors, and a covered soap dish with ceramic insert to keep soap from getting waterlogged. Some sets also included a large covered container for waste water and a dish to hold combs or hair brushes.
A person used the warm clean water in the larger pitcher to wash their face, hands, and even brush their teeth. The poured the used water from the basin into a bucket or large ceramic jar.
Potteries produced washstand sets in various colors, materials, and styles, from plain white ironstone to decorative hand-painted sets.
Identifying the marking on an antique wash bowl and pitcher can help discover its origin, manufacturer, and value. Potteries inscribed and embossed the markings on their pieces during the production process. So any manufacturer’s mark applied to a set is likely to still be visible.
Should a washstand set be devoid of a manufacturer’s mark, it’s possible to date it by the shape of its handles. Scrolled or high-arching handles with thumb spurs indicate mid-19th century Victorian styles, dating from to the 1840-1860s, while angular, bamboo-style handles indicate the Aesthetic Movement, dating to the 1870s and 1880s. A handle featuring organic, flowing “whiplash” curves that melt into the body of the cup or pitcher suggests the Art Nouveau style, dating from 1890 to 1910. And sharp, geometric angles, circles, and stepped designs indicate the Art Deco style, dating from 1925 to the 1935.
But before analyzing the handle’s shape, it’s important to see how it’s attached. Early 19th-century pieces generally had “applied” handles. The potter would hand-roll a strip of clay and attach it to the body of the cup or pitcher before firing. Applied handles with a small depression or “thumb-print” at the base of the handle suggests an earlier date, often pre-1860.
Conversely, if the handle has a visible seam line running down the center that matches the seam on the pitcher body, it had been molded as one piece. This mass-production technique became standard later in the Victorian era.
Handles produced from the 1850s to the 1870s were mostly in the Rococo or Gothic Revival styles. Potteries produced pitcher handles with elaborate scrollwork and often added a “thumb spur” or thumb rest at the top of the handle’s curve.
However, if a handle imitates a vine, branch, or stag’s antler, then it dates most likely to between the 1850s and 1860s. Segmented bamboo handles appear on pitchers from the 1870s to the 1890s. And rope-shaped handles have been found on pitchers made by potteries along the eastern seaboard.
Since these washstand sets were ceramic, they were open to breakage, even though most were made with thicker walls and handles, making finding a complete set more of a challenge.
For common pieces, broken handles and cracks can reduce the value of an entire set. However, even partial sets or just wash bowls and pitchers are often sold separately.
An antique washbowl and pitcher with matching patterns or in a set is more valuable than separate pieces paired together. This is because finding an antique matching set in recent times is quite tasking and almost impossible. Also, sets made by well known potteries are usually worth more.
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