Harlequin Plate
date: label: Date made
content: 1938-64
name: label: maker
content: Homer Laughlin China Co.
notes: label: Description
content: About Homer Laughlin China Company: The Homer Laughlin firm was founded in 1871 in Newell, West Virginia by the two brothers, Shakespeare and Homer Laughlin. A long-lived pottery, it survived two world wars and continued until 2020, when it was sold to Steelite, a British tableware manufacturer. Though Homer Laughlin China produced art pottery in its earlier days, it is best known for its Fiesta line, a brightly-colored Art Deco-styled set of tableware that was designed by the noted ceramicist, Frederick Hurten Rhead. Rhead was Homer Laughlin's art director from 1927 until his death in 1942. Fiesta ware is still produced by Fiesta Tableware Company, a division of Steelite. The New York Times called Fiesta “the most collected brand of china in the United States” (Alexander 2002). Homer Laughlin China Company was known for many dinnerware designs and also produced commemorative plates and art pottery vases.
label: Description
content: (Alexander, Kelly, 2002.“The Way We Live Now”. The New York Times, December 1.)
label: Description
content: About Fiesta Ware and Frederick Hurten Rhead: Frederick Hurten Rhead was born to a ceramics family in Staffordshire, England and emigrated to the United States in 1902 at age 22. He held many positions, working for William P. Jervis at the Vance/Avon Faience Company, Weller Pottery, Rosedale Pottery, and Jervis Pottery, until appointed instructor at the experimental University City Pottery in St. Louis in 1909. Two years later, he joined Arequipa Pottery in California and stayed for two years before organizing Pottery of the Camarata, incorporated as Rhead Pottery, in Santa Barbara in 1914 (Kovel and Kovel1993:158). His refined, simplified designs inspired other potters and became emblematic of the Arts and Crafts movement. Rhead was responsible for designs and glazing, and he assigned throwing to two wheel experts; decoration was also sometimes assigned to other artists. Rhead was inspired by ancient Chinese pottery and the Art Nouveau Movement and often created inlaid and incised designs using scarab, peacock, and landscape scenes (Evans 1987:236). Rhead won a gold medal at the San Diego Exposition of 1915, but his work was not financially successful, and Rhead Pottery closed in 1917. He then returned to Zanesville, Ohio, where he worked at the American Encaustic Tiling Company for ten years and in 1927 became the art director for Homer Laughlin China Company in Newell, West Virginia. With that company, he designed his famous Art Deco Fiesta Ware china line in the 1930s. He stayed there until his death in 1942.
label: Description
content: (Evans, Paul, 1987. Art Pottery of the United States. New York: Feingold and Lewis Publishing Corp.; Kovel, Ralph and Terry Kovel, 1993. Kovels’ American Art Pottery: The Collector’s Guide to Makers, Marks and Factory Histories. New York: Crown Publishers.)
label: Description
content: About the Object:
label: Description
content: White-bodied earthenware dinner plate covered with shiny yellow glaze. Circular coupe shape with plain rim.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: West Virginia, Newell
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
label: See more items in
content: Art
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Paula K. Jeffries
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1999.0355.02
label: accession number
content: 1999.0355
label: catalog number
content: 1999.0355.02
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate, dinner
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: ceramic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: yellow (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/4 in; x 23.495 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7/8 in x 9 5/16 in; 2.2225 cm x 23.65375 cm