Festive Fiesta Ware

 

QUESTION: My aunt had a large collection of Fiesta dinnerware which she left to me. I added a few pieces that I found at flea markets over the last few years, but now I want to sell it. Is this pottery worth much and where would be the best place to sell it?

ANSWER: Depending on what pieces you have, your collection of Fiesta dinnerware could be worth a small fortune. But before you get dollar signs in your eyes, there are a few things you should know about it.

The style and bright colors of Fiesta dinnerware look very 1950s. But actually it appeared during the Great Depression in the mid-1930s. Englishman, Frederick Hurten Rhead, designed the simple Art Deco shapes while chief engineer Victor Albert Bleininger fabricated the colorful signature glazes. Both worked for the Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell, West Virginia.

Originally, the company offered 37 different affordable pieces, ranging from candle holders and ashtrays to large serving dishes, each in five bright colors: red-orange, yellow, green, cobalt blue, and ivory. It added turquoise in 1939 for a total of six basic colors.

Homer Laughlin pioneered a whole new concept in dinnerware with Fiesta. When it first introduced the dinnerware at the annual Pottery and Glass Exhibit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in January 1936, its line was the first widely mass-marketed, solid-color dinnerware in the country. It was also the first dinnerware that consumers could purchase by the piece instead of in complete sets, as was the custom at the time. This allowed customers to mix and match, perhaps choosing a different color for each place setting, or have all their dinner plates one color, their cups and saucers another, and so on. This concept became instantly popular with the public, and soon Fiesta dinnerware became a runaway hit.

At its introduction, Fiesta dinnerware consisted of the usual place settings of dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, and cups and saucers, plus occasional pieces such as candle holders in two designs, a bud vase, and an ash tray. A set of seven nested mixing bowls ranged in size from five to twelve inches in diameter. The company also sold basic place settings for four, six and eight persons. But the idea from the start was to create a line of open-stock items from which the consumer could pick and choose based on their personal preference.

The Homer Laughlin Company quickly added several additional items to their line and eliminated several unusual items—a divided 12-inch plate, a turquoise covered onion soup bowl, and the covers for its set of mixing bowls. The Fiesta line eventually consisted of 64 different items, including flower vases in three sizes, water tumblers, carafes, teapots in two sizes, five-part relish trays, and large plates in 13- and 15-inch diameters. 

But with the onset of World War II, the company was forced to reduce the number of items in the Fiesta line as public demand declined and companies cut back non-war related production. By the end of the war, Homer Laughlin had reduced the items in its Fiesta line by one third. 

The design of the original dinnerware pieces remained unchanged from 1936 to 1969. However, the company did change its colored glazes to keep up with home decorating color trends. It introduced four new colors—rose, gray, dark green, and chartreuse, replacing the original blue, green, and ivory. Yellow and turquoise continued in production.

By the end of the 1950s, sales again dropped, so the company reduced its offering of items and changed the glaze colors once again. This time, it introduced a medium green, to distinguish it from other green glazes which the company had produced. This shade of green is in high demand by collectors, and certain pieces in this color command extremely high prices.

Homer Laughlin removed the original red-orange color, the most expensive glaze to produce, before 1944 because it contained uranium oxide which the government needed to construct the atom bombs. Therefore, red pieces also usually command a premium price in today’s collectible market.

By 1969, the company restyled the finials on covers, handles on cups, bowl contours and shapes to give them a more contemporary style. 

Fiesta dinnerware became popular once again as baby boomers began establishing their own homes. Not long after Homer Laughlin discontinued the brightly colored dinnerware line in January 1973,  collectors began buying up what remained at garage sales and second-hand shops. Prices for it hit the roof and by the mid-1980s, prices of Fiesta items reached $100 for scarcer pieces. 

Generally, serving pieces such as casserole dishes, carafes, teapots, and water pitchers almost always have higher values than normal place setting pieces. As mentioned earlier, certain colors are also priced higher, no matter what the piece.

It’s also important to look on the back of each piece for the familiar “Fiesta” backstamp,  followed by 'HLC USA', 'MADE IN USA' or 'H.L. CO. USA.' You may also discover some pieces with the word 'GENUINE' stamped near the Fiesta signature.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about old-time winter objects in the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Edition, with the theme "Winter Memories," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Snowman

 

QUESTION: I have two George Durrie prints I'm trying to find out about. I know that One is called “Home to Thanksgiving” and the other one is “The Road-Winter.”  What can you tell me about George Durrie and his prints?

ANSWER: George Henry Durrie’s work has often been confused with that of Currier & Ives. He dealt with the same subjects, mostly rural winter themes, and his style is very similar. This is no accident, for while Durrie painted on his own, Currier & Ives marketed his work after their firm became the premier seller of hand-colored lithographs.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1820, the son of a stationer John Durrie, he studied off and on with local portraitist Nathaniel Jocelyn from 1839 to 1841. After mastering his painting skills, Durrie traveled throughout his home state of Connecticut and then through New Jersey doing portraits on commission. In his record book, Durrie lists portraits sold during visits to the Connecticut towns of Bethany, Hartford, Naugatuck, and Meriden. He also traveled successfully to Freehold, New Jersey, and Petersburg, Virginia. 

By 1845 local newspapers carried advertisements for Durrie's 'snow pictures' and his Sleighing Party was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in that year. Landscapes, which had first appeared as backgrounds in his portraits, became his primary focus. He painted local landmarks such as East Rock and West Rock, as well as composite scenes of rural life. Country inns and barnyards, scenes of human activity, became his most oft-used subjects. While he painted these in all seasons, his depictions of them in winter were the most numerous, growing in frequency between 1854 and 1863. 

He became so known for his snow scenes that people called him “The Snowman.” Durrie was a meticulous artist, including fine details in his scenes, providing a record of 19th-century rural life. He paid special attention to the foliage and animals in his paintings, making them all the more realistic. But his method was more stylistic than realistic, catering to nostalgic images of farm life that people liked, rather than brutally realistic ones. Pioneers who had traveled West from New England especially liked them.

Though he began painting New England summer farm scenes, he soon discovered that if he added snow to them they became more appealing to the public. Durrie has been credited with adding the “snowscene” into American painting, creating a wintry ambiance that can be found on many Christmas cards today. 

Almost all of his compositions are small, with few being larger than 18 x 24 inches. His scenes were still and intimate. He knew and admired the works of Thomas Cole and tried to emulate Cole's style, yet he was more drawn to the compositional complexity and expansiveness of the Hudson River School, the leading school of American landscape painting at the time. He used a wide angle view in his compositions with people in them being close enough to be within hailing distance. Durrie’s paintings had a storytelling content that made them pleasant, accessible images to the average viewer.

His early landscapes were often of local landmarks and other local scenes, which were popular with his New Haven clients, and he painted numerous variations of popular subjects. As his portrait commissions declined, Durrie concentrated on landscapes. He wanted a wider audience, and he seemed to have a good sense of what would sell. Durrie realized that his paintings would have a wider appeal if he made them as generic New England scenes rather than as identifiable local scenes, retaining a sense of place without specifying where that place actually was. 

The New York City lithographic firm of Currier & Ives knew their audience; the American public wanted nostalgic scenes of rural life, images of the good old days, and Durrie’s New England scenes fit the bill perfectly. Lithographic prints were a very democratic form  of art, cheap enough that the humblest home could afford some art to hang on the wall. Durrie had been marketing his paintings in New York City, and Currier and Ives, who had popularized such prints, purchased some of Durrie’s paintings in the late 1850s or early 1860s, and eventually published 10 of his pictures beginning in 1861  and the artist's death in New Haven in 1863. Currier & Ives published six additional Durrie prints posthumously. Among his most popular prints were "Cider Making," "Winter in the Country," "Getting Ice," and "Winter Morning."

"Home to Thanksgiving," painted in 1861 and one of Durrie’s snow landscapes, became one of Currier and Ives’ most popular prints. Currier & Ives published the large-folio print from it in 1867. The print originally sold for $1.50. Today, an original of this print sells for many times that. 

The popularity of Durrie’s snow scenes received an additional boost in the 1930s, when the Traveler’s Insurance Company began issuing calendars featuring Currier and Ives prints. Starting in 1946, the January calendar always featured a Durrie snow scene. Of Durrie’s 125 paintings, 84 were of snow scenes, making him the most prolific snow scene painter of his time.

Critics dismissed George Durrie as a popular artist, an illustrator rather than a fine artist—an common opinion at the time. They considered anyone painting commercially for payment a hack. While in theory art should be for all the people, those who support the fine arts would rather keep the riff-raff at bay. Ironically, it was the common man who made Durrie’s work famous.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the "Antiques of Christmas" in the 2021 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

A Sign of Welcome

QUESTION: At a number of Americana antique shows I’ve attended, I’ve seen pineapples used as decoration, especially on pieces of furniture from the 18th century. Can you tell me why cabinetmakers used them so much?

ANSWER: Pineapples have long been associated with Southern hospitality. Many people associate pineapples with Colonial Williamsburg. Perhaps that’s because it began decorating with them in the 1930s. But the idea didn’t start there.

Christopher Columbus discovered pineapples in 1493 on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Since the fresh sweet fruit wasn’t available back home, his crew looked on it with awe and wonder. In Renaissance Europe, fresh fruit was seldom available. Common sweets were also rare. Sugar derived from cane was expensive and had to be imported from the Middle East and Asia.

In the West Indies, however, pineapples were a plentiful native fruit. So much so that the locals used it to both warn away intruders and welcome guests. They planted barriers of pineapple around their village because they believed their sharp, spiky leaves deterred unwelcome visitors. But they also hung the fruit on their gates as a symbol of hospitality and abundance.

Columbus and his men brought these sweet, succulent fruits back to Europe where they became instantly popular. But not everyone embraced the spiky fruit. When Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor had an early opportunity to taste the pineapple, he refused, fearing that it might poison him.

In 1657, Captain Richard Ligon published A True and Exact Story of Barbados, an account of his travels from London to the West Indies. In his journal, he devoted entire pages to the pineapple.

Diaries of the time often recorded gifts of pineapples presented to the king, and late 17th century ship manifests listed pineapples making their way from Barbados and Bermuda to England.

European gardeners perfected a hothouse method for growing pineapples, and in 1675, John Rose presented King Charles II of England with the first pineapple grown in England. The king later posed for an official portrait of him receiving the pineapple as a gift. The act was symbolic of royal privilege.

During the 18th century in England, greenhouse gardening became a popular hobby for the nobility, who coveted pineapples. The fruits often served double duty at dinner parties, first as an elaborate table decoration, and then as dessert.

The Spanish were probably the first to adopt the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality, carving pineapple designs into much of their woodwork: The custom soon spread throughout Europe, where it became fashionable to incorporate pineapple motifs into furnishings. Eventually, cabinetmakers adorned tall case clocks with pineapple finials. This custom continued into the early 20th century.

Sea captains, who sailed to the Caribbean Islands and returned to the New England Colonies with cargoes of fruit, spices and rum, first introduced the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality in America. Upon their return, the captains would spear a pineapple on the fence post outside their home, where it would serve as an invitation for friends to visit and share their food, drink, and tales of adventure.

Before long, American innkeepers adopted the pineapple as a means of welcoming guests. Inns would feature pineapple motifs on their signs and advertising literature, while pineapple-related items within their establishment included carvings on bedposts, vanities and dressers along with furniture, brasses, doorknobs, lamps and candleholders.

American architects also embraced the pineapple. Early estates and public buildings often have carved wooden or stone pineapple gate posts and copper or brass pineapple weather vanes. One such example is the home of Virginia's William Byrd. In 1730, Byrd ordered a carved door surround from London for his Westover plantation mansion on the James River. The door featured a broken-scroll pediment with a pineapple in the center.

The pineapple continued to find its way into home decor. Carpets, draperies, napkins and tablecloths often had pineapple designs woven into them. And women stitched pineapples into their quilts and needlework.