Roblin Vase
notes: label: Description
content: About the Arts and Crafts Movement:
label: Description
content: Beginning in England in the early 1880s, the Arts and Crafts movement spread across the United States and Europe by the late 1880s. It celebrated the importance of beauty in everyday objects and urged a reconnection to nearby nature. The movement resisted the way industrial mass production undermined artisan crafts and was inspired by the ideas of artisan William Morris and writer John Ruskin. Valuing hand-made objects using traditional materials, it was known for a color palette of earth tones. Its artistic principles replaced realistic, colorful, and three-dimensional designs with more abstract and simplified forms using subdued tones. Stylized plant forms and matte glazes echoed a shift to quiet restraint in household décor. The Arts and Crafts movement also embraced social ideals, including respect for skilled hand labor and concern for the quality of producers’ lives. The movement struggled with the tension between the cost of beautiful crafts and the limited number of households able to afford them. Some potters relied on practical products such as drain tiles to boost income or supported themselves with teaching or publications. Arts and Crafts influence extended to other endeavors, including furniture, such as Stickley’s Mission Style, and architecture, such as the Arts and Crafts bungalow, built widely across the United States. American Arts and Crafts pottery flourished between 1880 and the first World War, though several potteries continued in successful operation into the later 20th century.
label: Description
content: About Roblin Pottery:
label: Description
content: After a series of early initiatives, the Roblin Art Pottery Company began in 1898 in San Francisco, led by Alexander W. Robertson and Linna Irelan. Robertson was the founder of the Chelsea Keramic Art Works in Massachusetts and moved to California in 1884. Using only California fine clays, the firm emphasized high-gloss vases, thrown and fired by Robertson. Decoration was applied by Irelan, and her specialty was modeled mushroom and lizards. The pottery, its new pottery school, and the firm’s stock were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Robertson then moved to Los Angeles, and Irelan left pottery work. Robertson later worked with the Halcyon Pottery in Halcyon, California.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, San Francisco
topic: label: Subject
content: Art Pottery
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: C. Malcom Watkins
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.73.46
label: catalog number
content: 73.46
label: accession number
content: 308478
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vase
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, blue (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 5/16 in x 2 5/16 in; 8.4455 cm x 5.9055 cm