Date: Fri 16-Oct-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDYC

Quick Words:

Bennington

Full Text:

The Bennington Parian Project:

An Analytical Reevaluation Of The Bennington Museum Collection

w/cuts

By Deborah A. Federhen

& Ellen Paul Denker

BENNINGTON, VT -- The Bennington Museum is well known as a center for the

study of the ceramics produced by two potteries in Bennington, Vt., during the

Nineteenth Century -- the Norton Pottery and the United States Pottery

Company.

The scope, diversity and size of the museum's collections of Bennington

pottery and porcelain is unequaled. In addition, the museum owns an extensive

collection of documentary material relating to these potteries. The

Rockingham, flint enamel wares, and Norton stonewares have been a primary

focus of the museum's exhibition and publication activities since the 1920s.

However, while the museum's collection of Parian has grown in numbers over the

years, this portion of the collection has received analytical attention only

recently. Since 1997, the Bennington Museum has been conducting a scholarly

examination of its Parian collection.

For many years, antiques dealers and collectors of Parian have accepted the

attributions of Bennington Parian published by Richard Carter Barret,

Bennington Pottery and Porcelain (1958). Scholars, on the other hand, have

questioned the breadth of production ascribed to the firm, particularly the

vast numbers illustrated by Barret. How, many have queried, could a pottery

produce such a diverse array of different Parian and porcelain forms in so

short a time?

Deborah Federhen, curator of collections of the Bennington Museum, and

ceramics scholar Ellen Paul Denker, with the assistance of scholars and

curators in America and England, conducted a study of the Parian collection in

an effort to answer these questions and determine, with as much accuracy as

possible, which pieces of Parian were actually produced by the Bennington

potteries.

The earliest reference to porcelain production in Bennington occurs in a

letter from Christopher Webber Fenton to C.B. Adams, dated September 15, 1845.

Fenton writes that a fire at the pottery has "suspended all my experiments in

the manufacture of porcelain, to an indefinite period."

Porcelain making in Bennington resumed in about 1846 when John Harrison began

to work at the Norton Pottery. Harrison, a skilled porcelain craftsman, is

said to have worked at Copeland's Works in England before relocating to

America. Research by Judith Ziller, director of education at the Bennington

Museum, has determined that he worked first in New York, where his son was

born in 1846, and had moved to Bennington by 1847, when he appears in the town

land records.

The museum owns a few small Parian figures believed to have been made by

Harrison. However, it does not appear that the pottery was making porcelain as

a commercial product. These first experiments in porcelain probably ended with

the dissolution of the partnership of Julius Norton and Christopher Webber

Fenton in June 1847. By 1849, Harrison was living in Shusan, N.Y., and in

1850, in Mechanicville, N.Y.

By the fall of 1847, Fenton was in business making "White Flint Ware" and

"China" along with a variety of decorative and utilitarian earthenwares.

Contemporary advertisements and newspaper descriptions of the products of

Fenton's subsequent partnerships continue to list "White Flint" wares,

however, Parian is not mentioned until a price list dated 1852 that included

ten figures, four pitchers, door knobs, door plates, and a mustard cup in this

material. These items make up approximately ten percent of the 162 objects

listed on this document. Fenton's pottery exhibited five Parian figures,

pitchers, a clock case, and a sugar bowl in Parian at the New York Crystal

Palace Exhibition of 1853 under its new name, the United States Pottery

Company. Extensive descriptions of the wares appeared in reviews of the

exhibition.

The factory closed in the spring of 1858 due to financial problems. Thus, the

actual period of time in which Parian was made in Bennington could have been

as little as six years and was certainly no more than 12 years. Although the

factory was large by contemporary standards, employing as many as 175 workers

in 1853, they were making many other types of wares. The company was most

famous for its patented flint enamel wares. Kiln inventories for all three

kilns in 1855 and 1856 record large quantities of yellowware, common white,

"white granite," agateware, flint enamel, and cream-colored ware, a heavy-duty

utilitarian ware used primarily for chamber pots, urinals, bedpans and bread

bowls, but no Parian. Given this information, the sheer volume and variety of

work attributed to Bennington by Barret seemed improbable.

Assessment Of

Previous Scholarship

In order to determine the origin of these attributions, Denker and Federhen

surveyed previous publications on Bennington Parian. The earliest Bennington

scholars were appropriately cautious in their discussions of Parian. Ceramics

collector Albert Pitkin in Early American Folk Pottery including the History

of Bennington Pottery(1918) and Bennington Museum director John Spargo in The

Potters and Potteries of Bennington (1926) ascribe very few pieces of Parian

to the USP. They included only marked objects or those with a local

provenance, which was presumed to indicate proof of local manufacture.

Subsequent scholarship has documented the extensive worldwide trade in

ceramics that distributed objects from England, China, France, Germany, and

other United States potteries throughout New England. Local ownership,

therefore, is no longer sufficient evidence to support an attribution of local

manufacture.

In fact, the museum accession cards that Spargo prepared for many of the

locally owned Parian objects do not claim that these were made in Bennington,

but merely state their provenance. An example of Spargo's ambivalence can be

seen in the caption of the ewer illustrated in plate XXIV of his book. In

spite of its history of ownership by Reverend Anson Graves, rector of Christ

Church in Bennington, Spargo observes that he has "sometimes doubted whether,

after all, it was actually made at Bennington -- whether, indeed, it may not

be one of the English pieces brought here...".

The Parian Myth

Much of the responsibility for the mass attribution of unmarked Parian to the

Bennington pottery must lie with Barret, who transmuted Spargo's ambivalence

into unassailable fact. Barret published Reverend Graves' ewer as a rare

Bennington-made piece of Parian, without any further explanation or

substantiation. Similarly, there is no documentation given for any of the

hundreds of unmarked Parian objects illustrated by Barret as Bennington wares.

Barret's assumptions grew out of a mythology that developed simultaneously

with, but separately from, the early work of Pitkin and Spargo. The Bennington

Parian myth seems to have originated in the 1920s with Dr Charles Green, a New

York physician and ceramics enthusiast, who amassed a large collection of

Parian trinket boxes and vases during his antiquing forays throughout New

England.

Without the benefit of current scholarship documenting the importation of

European ceramics into New England, Green reasoned that anything found in New

England must have been manufactured there. Since the Bennington pottery was

known to have made some Parian, Green reasoned that all his unmarked Parian

must have been made there as well.

Green promoted his collection through numerous articles published in

newspapers and magazines during the 1930s. Although he occasionally cautioned

other would-be collectors of the similarity of his "Bennington Parian" to

wares made in England, as well as in South Boston, Trenton, and Baltimore, he

continued to expand his attributions to the Vermont pottery with no

documentation other than personal opinion and geographic proximity of

acquisition.

There was concern about the validity of Dr Green's attributions as early as

1934, when the following poem was published:

Dr Charles Green, the Parian King

Forswore Chelsea and Derby and Ming,

Sought for a porcelain rather more native,

Settled on Parian, got speculative.

Bought all he found and filled up a room --

Started in fact a regular boom.

Then, as befitted a true antiquarian,

Wondered if what he had gathered was Parian.

Whispered an instinct derived from the Aryan,

"Maybe your vases and pitchers are Parian."

By his own admission, in letters now preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, Dr Green reveled in his ability to find Parian pieces to be

Bennington-made when others rejected them as English.

Elizabeth McCullough Johnson of Bennington was one of Green's most avid

followers. Her scrapbook in the Bennington Museum contains dozens of his

articles, including the above poem. She began to collect Parian in 1931 on

buying trips throughout New England and New York State, eventually purchasing

most of Green's own sizeable collection. In addition, her collecting records

indicate that she purchased ceramics, including Parian, from Barret.

Following Green's example, Johnson attributed all the unmarked Parian to

Bennington, and by the 1950s, had accumulated hundreds of pieces. Barret

courted her as a benefactor of the museum. She served as a member of the board

of trustees from 1956 until her death in 1965, along with her brother, Hall

Park McCullough, who was the president of the board during the 1950s.

Bennington Pottery and Porcelain is primarily a catalogue of her collection.

In 1958, the year of its publication, and in 1959, Johnson and her brother

made sizeable donations to the museum for the construction of a new wing.

In 1966, the museum acquired the Johnson collection as a bequest. The 1,521

objects included examples of Rockingham, flint enamel, stoneware, agateware,

and white graniteware, in addition to Parian, both marked and unmarked.

Barret's motive in publishing Bennington Pottery and Porcelain appears to have

been the cultivation of a valuable patron for the museum, rather than the

advancement of ceramics scholarship. The format of the book as a picture book

with minimal text of only 18 pages suggests that this was more of a "vanity"

publication than a scholarly work.

Further mitigating the book's value as a reliable tool for identifying

Bennington Parian are the dozens of inaccuracies it contains. Some of the

pieces illustrated by Barret as being made in Bennington are actually marked

by English potteries. Others published as bearing a Fenton or United States

Pottery mark are either unmarked or marked by an English company. Even those

correctly identified as marked Bennington pieces are frequently described with

an incorrect mark. Barret published seven pieces of Parian with English marks

as being made in Bennington (plates 334, 339a,b, 352c,e, 356d,f). He claimed

that 12 pieces have Bennington marks, when they are in fact unmarked (plates

54a, 55a, 55b, 60a, 60b, 71b, 83, 113b, 234, 235a, 235b, 356d) and published

the wrong Bennington mark on an additional five pieces (plates 21, 50, 71c,

92c, 99a).

Still other pieces were published by Barret with complete disregard for

historical accuracy. For example, his attribution of vases bearing portrait

medallions of a bearded Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses Grant to a factory

that closed in 1858 defies historical fact. With regard to Parian, Bennington

Pottery and Porcelain combines Dr Green's unsupported opinions, Mrs Johnson's

collecting enthusiasm, and Barret's inaccuracies and presumed fundraising

agenda with unfortunate results. The book erroneously introduced hundreds of

Parian shapes into the Bennington lexicon.

Project Protocol

Under these circumstances, using the published source material as a starting

point for the reassessment of the Parian collection was out of the question.

Instead Federhen and Denker had to develop a different method of looking at

the objects and analyzing the primary evidence in the light of more up-to-date

ceramics scholarship.

Intensive documentary research on the potters and potteries of Bennington

began in 1988 when Catherine Zusy joined the Bennington Museum as curator of

decorative arts. Zusy, Ziller and research assistant Marietta Hibbard culled

information relating to Bennington's pottery industries from contemporary

newspapers and magazines, as well as from the museum's large collection of

manuscript materials for Norton Stoneware and American Redware: the Bennington

Museum Collection (1991).

Within this large body of newly accumulated and organized documentary evidence

was a great deal of information on Christopher Webber Fenton and the United

States Pottery Company. Key documents pertaining to the Parian reevaluation

project included the 1852 price list (discovered by Charles Messer Stow in the

1930s), numerous period newspaper and magazine descriptions of the pottery's

products and operations, and the notes made by pottery collector Burton Gates

from interviews with surviving potters in the 1910s. The museum also has a

large number of marked objects in its collection, which had been acquired

through donations and purchases over the years, as well as the unmarked

objects collected by Spargo with local histories of ownership.

The Control Group

First, Federhen and Denker isolated all the marked pieces to establish a

control group of incontrovertible Bennington Parian ware. This appears to have

been the first time that the pottery's marked wares were studied as a coherent

group. Denker and Federhen discovered that, aside from one pair of deer mantel

figures, all the marked pieces are pitchers. There are 16 different patterns,

15 of which are represented in the museum.

The earliest pitchers are marked with a raised square impressed with the words

"Fenton's Works;/Bennington,/Vermont." Although this mark clearly identifies

the American origins of the piece, the general appearance of this mark was

copied from that used by the English firm of Jones & Walley, which appears to

have supplied the prototypes for several of the pitcher patterns as well. The

pitchers that bear this mark would have been made prior to 1853, the year in

which the pottery changed its name.

There were seven patterns made during this early period: Love and War, Bird's

Nest, Snowdrop, Panel Flower and Vine, Rib Flower and Vine, Wild Rose, and

Tulip and Sunflower. Aside from a few handpainted versions of the Wild Rose

design, these pitchers are all white.

The 1852 order form includes four pitchers numbered in descending order of

price per dozen, $12, 10, 8 and 4. It is likely that the Love and War and

Bird's Nest are pitchers 3 and 4, respectively, since their small size would

correspond to the lower prices. Four of these patterns are copied from English

precedents -- Love and War, Bird's Nest, Snowdrop, and Tulip and Sunflower. It

is possible that the other two pitchers mentioned on the 1852 list are

Snowdrop, and Tulip and Sunflower. Working in a new material, Fenton probably

copied English prototypes for his earliest pieces before attempting original

designs such as the Wild Rose and the two Flower and Vine variations.

The Fenton pottery primarily used two marks after 1853, when the pottery was

incorporated as the United States Pottery Company. The earlier of the two is a

raised or applied lozenge impressed "UNITED STATES/POTTERY/CO./BENNINGTON,

VT.," which appears on four pitcher patterns. These are Cascade, Climbing Ivy,

Tulip and Sunflower, and Paul and Virginia without figures. The Bennington

Museum owns Tulip and Sunflower pitchers with blue and brown backgrounds which

have applied lozenge marks in corresponding colors.

A raised ribbon mark with the initials "U.S.P." was the last mark used on

Parian by this firm. The ribbon also features two numbers denoting the pattern

number and the capacity of the pitcher. The pattern numbers in the Bennington

Museum collection run from 10 to 16. Examples of all the patterns, except

number 13, are represented in the museum. The number 13 may never have been

used for a pattern due to superstition.

The numbered patterns are as follows: 10 - Paul and Virginia, with and without

figures; 11 - Arabesque; 12 - Tulip and Sunflower with stippled background; 14

- Pond Lily; 15 - Oak Leaf, smooth background with palm tree under spout; and,

16 - Oak Leaf, with stippled background. Only two of these later pitchers,

Paul and Virginia, and Pond Lily, in addition to the Tulip and Sunflower

pattern retained from the earlier period, are copied from English models.

The Bennington Museum owns a single example of a third mark used rarely by the

USP Company after 1853. An incised oval mark "UNITED STATES/POTTERY

CO./BENNINGTON VT.," is found on a Bird's Nest syrup pitcher in the museum

collection. This version of the Bird's Nest pattern is slightly smaller than

those bearing the lozenge mark, but otherwise identical.

The marked pitchers display a remarkable similarity in materials, manufacture

and design esthetics. The body is fine-grained, creamy white, and usually free

of impurities. The pitcher patterns are press-molded in low relief, with no

applied decoration. Color is not found until after 1853, when blue and tan are

used. This early blue, seen on Paul and Virginia and Tulip and Sunflower

pitchers, is an unusual and distinctive dark navy blue color. Later pitchers

with the ribbon mark exhibit a royal blue color.

There is an esthetic consistency among the pitchers, particularly with the

patterns which appear to be new designs -- Flower and Vine, Wild Rose,

Climbing Ivy, Arabesque, and Oak Leaf. The foliate-type decoration is

conceived as an overall pattern, without the horizontal or segmental divisions

frequently found on European pitchers. The elements meander over the entire

surface, with very little open space. Vines and branches are oriented

naturally from the handle or the base of the pitcher. The small features and

graceful curves create a delicate and refined appearance. Cascade is also a

USP original design, though it is not a foliate pattern, and differs slightly

in its esthetic orientation.

In addition to the pitchers described above, there are only two other known

marked Bennington Parian objects. The museum owns a pair of mantel figures

depicting a seated stag and doe that are stamped with the circular 1849 mark,

a mark that was used frequently on Rockingham and flint enamel wares. The mark

features incised letters with "Lyman, Fenton & Co./BENNINGTON, Vt." encircling

"Fenton's/ENAMEL/PATENTED/1849."

Attributing Unmarked Parian

In order to determine what additional items could be attributed to Bennington

with some certainty, Federhen and Denker carefully reviewed the artifactual

and documentary evidence to establish criteria for attributing unmarked works.

The authors used six methods for attributing additional Parian objects to the

Bennington pottery: relationship to the marked Parian pieces; similarity to

other types of marked Bennington ceramics; valid archaeological evidence;

depiction in the engraving of the Crystal Palace Exhibition; inclusion in

contemporary price lists or descriptions of the pottery's wares; and a

reliable local Nineteenth Century provenance.

Attributions can be made by comparison with marked Bennington objects.

Unmarked pitchers which are identical to marked examples can be attributed

with some certainty. Although unmarked, a teapot, three sugar bowls and a

creamer in the Rib Flower and Vine pattern have been identified as products of

the USP by their similarity to the marked pitcher.

The museum owns three unmarked Parian vases in the Paul and Virginia pattern.

Barret erroneously published these vases and an unmarked redware vase in the

same pattern as having a ribbon mark. The low relief and simplified design

relate more closely to the Bennington pitchers in this pattern, rather than to

the English versions that are more intricate and sculptural. It is, therefore,

reasonable to attribute these to the Vermont factory. Similar care should be

exercised in attributing any patterns that were made in England and

Bennington. A mantel figure of a recumbent cow can be attributed to the USP

Company based on its similarity to marked Rockingham and flint enamel examples

of this form.

The only archaeological evidence used for the study was from

professionally-conducted archaeological excavations, since surface finds and

undocumented boxes of broken Parian lack a dependable geographic or temporal

context. For example, a box of Parian shards that Federhen and Denker examined

which were said to have been collected from the USP Company site by a local

antiques dealer included pieces of broken shop stock, identified by having a

stock number and price, which had been tossed into the box, thereby

compromising the validity of the entire collection.

In addition to shards recovered from earlier archaeological surveys conducted

on the site, the Bennington Museum received thousands of ceramic fragments

found during an archaeological excavation organized by ceramics scholar

Catherine Zusy and conducted by archaeologists David Starbuck and Victor

Rolando in May 1997. The dig was specifically sited near the South Wing of the

pottery where the Parian was produced. All but one of the 12 pits contained

Parian and a total of 3,802 Parian shards were found.

These shards corroborate the attributions which Federhen and Denker made based

on the artifactual and documentary evidence. The Zusy/Starbuck/Rolando report

confirms that all but a few of the fragments were from parts of ten different

pitchers that are all represented by marked examples in the museum's

collection. There were no fragments found of any of the other forms published

by Barret, including vases, figures, and trinket boxes, nor were there any

fragments found with applied grapes or flowers.

Two subsequent digs were conducted in April and August 1998 by Zusy, Starbuck

and Rolando. Although thousands of Parian shards were recovered, there were no

vases, trinket boxes, or applied grapes or flowers found. Zusy's preliminary

press release on the 1988 digs and examination of the shards by Federhen and

Ziller suggests that almost all of the Parian shards were from the marked

pitchers.

The archaeological digs have provided tantalizing evidence of several unknown

Parian objects made by the Fenton pottery. Two "mystery" shards from the 1997

dig could not be matched to any of the Parian in the museum's collections. One

is a fragment of the rim of a syrup pitcher with a portion of an acanthus

leaf. The other small piece has a floral design and is glazed on the inside;

the thickness of the body suggests that it was also part of a pitcher. The

August 1998 dig yielded several fragments that may have come from one or more

pitchers -- pieces of an octagonal body with lilies-of-the-valley, shaped rims

with pendant diamonds, and a raised rib with bellflowers. An S-shaped fragment

of a handle shaped like a branch entwined with flowers may have come from a

teapot or a creamer.

Archaeological evidence documents the production of two additional pitcher

patterns in Parian. The 1997 dig found pieces of an octagonal pitcher with

ribs accented by a climbing plant of the geranium family. The museum owns two

similar marked pitchers in flint enamel, botanically misidentified by Barret

as Ivy Vine pitcher (plates 62, 63). Large fragments of an octagonal cream

pitcher in an acanthus leaf pattern were recovered in an earlier dig; small

fragments of this pattern were found in the May 1997 and August 1998 dig.

These fragments also provide documentation for the museum's unmarked acanthus

creamers in Rockingham and white graniteware. In addition, archaeological

evidence documents a new variation of a known pattern. The archaeology team

found a fragment in the Wild Rose pattern with a stippled background, the

first indication that this variation was made. The August 1998 dig uncovered a

fragment of a spaniel against a floral background, which documents a small

figure of a standing boy playing with a dog in the museum collection as being

made by Fenton. The Bennington Museum owns flint enamel and stoneware versions

of this figure as well. Fragments of cane terminals in the form of human heads

and a curtain tie-back were also found in the August 1998 dig.

Documentary evidence exists for several unusual forms. An elaborate clock case

is illustrated in the engraving of the Crystal Palace exhibition published in

Gleason's Pictorial in October 1853. The museum owns an unmarked Parian clock

case with molded urns and foliate decoration which corresponds to the engraved

example and can be solidly attributed to the Bennington pottery. Fenton

created a large scale Parian allegorical group of a woman holding a child,

identified as "Justice" and "Mercy," for the top of his earthenware monument,

the centerpiece of his display, which can also be seen in the Gleason

engraving. This appears to have been a unique object, made specifically for

the Crystal Palace exhibition.

The 1852 price list includes door knobs, door plates, and a mustard cup in

Parian, however, there is no visual or archaeological evidence to suggest the

appearance of these items. None of the door knobs or name plates in the museum

collection can be identified as Bennington as yet.

There is documentary evidence for the figures made by the USP Company. The

1852 price list includes ten figures: Adoration, Cupid, Indian Queen, Good

Night, Grey Hound, Swan, Sailor Boy and Dog, Sheep, and Bird's Nest. The

illustration of the 1853 Crystal Palace exhibition depicts four figures: a

baby and eagle on a rock, a reclining boy, and two female figures standing on

plinths and dressed in classical drapery. These are the only figures which can

be reliably associated with the Fenton pottery.

The Bennington Museum owns several examples of the bird and baby grouping

shown in the engraving which match the marked Parian in the color and texture

of the ceramic body. These are undoubtedly Bennington products. The 1853

engraving illustrates several mantel ornaments in the form of deer, lions, and

poodles carrying baskets of fruit. While usually made in Rockingham and flint

enamel, the museum collection includes Parian examples of the poodles that can

be attributed to Bennington with some certainty. A tentative attribution has

been given to a figure of a girl bending to tie her shoe, which has been

identified in English sources as "Good Night."

Likewise, the sheep and bird nest figures in the museum collection which have

ceramic bodies similar to the marked Parian have been attributed to

Bennington. However, there is no evidence to document the appearance of the

other figures included on the price list and no examples have been found to

match the reclining boy or the female figures which were exhibited at the

Crystal Palace. The figure of Little Red Riding Hood published by Barret

(plate 356d) as bearing a Bennington mark is, in fact, marked by Minton; six

other figures published by Barret are marked by Copeland, Minton or Robert

Cooke, all English manufacturers (plates 334, 339a,b, 352c,e, 356f). Research

is continuing to determine which, if any, of the other figures in the museum

collection may be attributed to Bennington.

Provenance is the least reliable means of attributing a Bennington origin, as

family histories can be inaccurate and local ownership does not necessarily

indicate local production. Inventories of businesses and households in

Bennington document the sale and ownership of English ceramics in considerable

quantities as early as the late Eighteenth Century. Only a small fraction of

the museum's Parian collection, and none of the pieces in the Johnson

collection, have any provenance.

Scientific Testing

Denker and Federhen investigated the possibility of utilizing scientific

testing, such as Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence, as an additional

identification tool. The authors determined that, while it would be possible

to analyze the elemental composition of the ceramic bodies, this information

would be useless without the supplemental data necessary to correctly

interpret it. A representative sampling of documented pieces from every

pottery producing Parian in the Nineteenth Century in America, Britain and

Europe would be required in order to establish a baseline reference for

interpreting the raw data from an unmarked piece.

There were over 200 potteries in England and Scotland that were making Parian,

in addition to those in France, Germany, and Ireland. In America, Parian was

produced in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and Ohio. As there

are no documented pieces for most of the British potteries, this baseline

information is not available.

Furthermore, since many potteries were purchasing their clays from the same

sources, any attempt to differentiate between them based on the composition of

ceramic bodies would be impossible without complete and accurate documentation

of the sources of raw materials used by all the potteries producing Parian

during the Nineteenth Century in America, Britain and Europe. The analysis

would need samples of the clay, feldspar, kaolin, etc. from the same strata as

had been used in the Nineteenth Century. Neither the documentation nor the pit

samples have survived. There was also a very real danger that others would

attempt to extrapolate unwarranted significance from this unsupported data and

create new Bennington Parian myths.

An extensive search of public and private collections has not found any vases,

ewers, or trinket boxes which have a Fenton or USP mark, a fact which calls

into question the enormous number of these objects that have been attributed

to Bennington. Furthermore, there is no documentary or archaeological evidence

to indicate that any of these forms were made in Bennington. In the absence of

a single piece of evidence, it is impossible to make the assumption that the

hundreds of different vases, ewers and trinket boxes illustrated by Barret

were made by Fenton. Indeed, just the opposite seems to be the case.

Whereas Barret stated that Bennington Parian was rarely marked and difficult

to identify, Denker and Federhen have found that Bennington Parian is usually

marked making it quite easy to identify. Instead of making slavish copies of

English pieces, Bennington's modelers were innovative and creative. Instead of

hiding behind unmarked ware to trick buyers into thinking it of English make,

Fenton was justly proud of the work produced by his pottery and clearly marked

his wares in order to claim them as American.

The reevaluation of the Parian collection at the Bennington Museum was based

on the systematic analysis of information from a variety of sources:

documents, objects, and archaeology. By starting from the incontrovertible

evidence rather than from the many attributions that have been made over the

years, Federhen and Denker have been able to reconstruct a significant body of

work that documents the production of the United States Pottery Company. This

body of work now holds together unquestionably and waits for additions that

are based on firm evidence rather than hopeful speculation.