Bottoms Up

You can learn a lot about pottery piece by looking at the bottom. The clay on the bottom can offer clues to the area of origin. Many pottery companies marked the bottoms of their wares. Some companies stamp or incised information such as the company logo or name, the date of production, the designer or the artist who decorated the piece. Sometimes instead of incising or stamping information a clay medallion was added to the bottom to provide information. Sometimes you can identify or confirm identification of a piece by the look and or color of the glaze or clay on the bottom of a piece. Other times, you may be able to separate authentic pottery from fake pottery by carefully inspecting the bottom of a piece.

Rookwood Pottery: The best marked pottery with the most information.

In the photo at the left at the top is the Rookwood logo "RP" (the R is a mirror image) surrounded by flames. Below the logo you see the Roman Numerals XXV (1925), indicating the production date of the vase. Below the numerals, you see the number 2090 which is the pattern or shape of the vase.

The photo on right shows how an earlier Rookwood piece was marked. Again you see the the Rookwood logo. But there are no Roman Numerals. Instead the number for the pattern or shape is below the

Rookwood logo. Before 1901 and after 1886 the date was determined by counting the number of flames surrounding the "RP" in the logo. Prior to 1886 there were a number of different logos.

In addition to the logo and pattern  or shape number the initials ETH are inscribed. They let you know that the decoration on this vase is by Edward T. Hurley.

Also, notice the color of the bottoms of these two vases the one in the photo to the left is white, while the bottom of the vase on the right is yellow or buff. Around 1915 Rookwood pottery switched from using "Ohio Clay" to porcelain in making their pottery.

Almost all Rookwood pottery is marked in a similar fashion to these pieces.

Roseville Pottery:

Unlike Rookwood, Roseville did not mark all of their pottery. Roseville used a lot of different marks, including paper labels for their pottery.

The photo to left shows an unmarked Roseville pot. The line is called Early Carnelian. Notice the color of the bottom. That is one of the clues to identifying this line. Also, notice how different the bottom looks when compared to The bottom of the Rookwood pieces. The clay color is Ohio buff colored clay.

The photo below shows another Early Carnelian piece. The bottom color is different, but both bottoms have been ground to make the pot sit level. This had to be done because the glaze pooled at the bottom.

To the left is a third example of an Early Carnelian piece. Can you see the similarities between these pieces? Of course, in addition to the bottom of these pieces, your first clue will be the glaze. Roseville produced a number of lines which were unmarked. Most of them become relative easy to identify when you have seen a few pieces.

Most of the marked Roseville pieces incorporate the name, making it easy to identify them. There are replicas of Roseville pieces which also include the name in a very similar fashion to the genuine article, so you need to familiarize yourself with the differences. I am trying to present you with a quick overview of the reasons it is important to get to know the bottoms, so I am going to leave it to you to do the research on this one.

If you are not familiar with Roseville pottery, you might think the vase on the right was made by Rozane in Woodland (California?). In fact this is Roseville Rozane Woodland vase. The Rozane Ware seal can be found on a number of different lines of Roseville, including standard glaze pieces, a line called Mongol, Egypto and Mara (a line similar to Weller Sicard).