Middle Lane 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 Middle Lane Pottery:
label: Description
content: Theophilus Brouwer, Jr. began to produce art pottery in 1894 on Middle Lane in East Hampton, New York. He carried out all aspects of production, from turning on the wheel, mold-making, firing in the kiln, and decorating, and his wares were known for their unique “fire painting” in bright colors and gold. His flame-working technique held glazed items over an open flame, which created a metallic luster and took only an hour. He sold the firm in 1902 and opened Brouwer Pottery in Westhampton, New York. Though his artistic efforts then turned in other directions, he continued to produce his Fire Painted wares and incorporated the Ceramic Flame Company dedicated to them in 1925. Brouwer died in 1932, and the corporation closed in 1946.
label: Description
content: About the Object:
label: Description
content: Brouwer’s Victorian sensibilities are evident in this petite earth-toned vase. It features a mouse, complete with a swirling tail and miniature brown ears, gnawing a hole into the body of the vessel. Such whimsical decorations may seem contradictory to the austere nature of Victorian America but actually have a long history of production dating to the middle of the nineteenth century. Acknowledging growing demand for these small trifles, designers manufactured pint-sized animal adornments for jewelry, glass, and ceramic wares. Mice, rabbits, and small birds were particularly common in all forms of the decorative arts.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, East Hampton
topic: label: Subject
content: Art Pottery
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.60.228
label: catalog number
content: 60.228
label: accession number
content: 51728
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vase
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/2 in x 4 5/8 in; 8.89 cm x 11.7475 cm