The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-12
THE LATEST KERAMIc FAD.
Collections of China Which Have
 Been Here Over a Century.

DcCA 11CIC WI O SSAbUAys
 New York Post.
 Patriotism and keramics have been united by many of the clever women in this country, who now make a speciality of collecting china, porcelain, and earthen- ware which has been in the United States for more than 100 years. The field is much larger and more difficult than ap- pears at sight. The very age shuts out
 thousands of specimens which are eagerly sought for by ordinary collectors. The difficulty to the lover of the antique is great. because most of the owners of these precious wares refuse to part with them.
 There are several collections in New York which are of unusual size and in- terest. In one there has been special effort towards the accommodating of In- wares. Most of these are made of simple earthenware decorated in black and other dull colors, and only a few have any glaze.
 Of the second class are the many kinds | of table ware brought over by settlers in
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, | The modern age is apt to overlook the simple fact that In the old days all ker-
 annie goods were harder to get and more expensive than at the present time. Emi- | grants carried table ware with them,
 where today they bring merely clothing
 and money. The Pilgrims and Puritans
 brought out English and Dutch ware; the | Huguenots seemed to have possessed the
 finest taste in this line and imported to l JnlS country IaDTlCS rom the KllnS or
 France and Italy. The Knickerbockers
 were stanch patrons of Delft. Leyden.
 and other establishments in the Neither | lands. The Palatines of New York, who afterwards moved to New Jersey and | Pennsylvania, betrayed their love of the | Rhineand by a goodly assortment of the | heavy dark, glazed pottery which pre- vailed In that district in the first half of l the eighteenth century.
 l This love of home vas manifested by
 the Spanish settlers in California, Mexi- | co, and Louisiana and Florida. who amid | their household goods had many delicate | bits of the line wares of Spain. Rarest | of all were Scandinavian goods conveyed
 to the new world by the Swedes and | Films. who came here in the seventeenth | century. Not more than 200 pieces are | which are held in Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania communities. In the third | class are the goods turned out by the l colonial and post-revolutionary American potteries. Of these there were at least ten in operation altogether which had g
 fair output. The workmanship was rath-
 @. clumsy. although now and then de
 siderable crude merit. Some of thse aSt
 now held in the Widener, Ives. Morgan
 and Storer collections. The prices paid for these goods are fanciful in the ex- treme. cup and saucer belonging to
 Winthrop, Standish. or Bradford will
 easily bring from $75 to sl00 while a Delft | bowl of the Knickerbocker patroons Is
 cheap at $1OO. Even when these ancient
 creations are cracked and broken they
 still retain values as curios The art of
 reTairing has become a veritabe science, | and a mass of fragments can be restored l to pristine shape so completely as to show | few signs of the original accident.