Walley Vase
date: label: date made
content: ca 1900-1917
name: label: maker
content: Walley, William J.
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 Walley Pottery:
label: Description
content: William Joseph Walley was born in Ohio in 1852, but with the death of his father, he travelled to England at the age of ten and apprenticed at the Minton ceramic works. After turning 21, he returned to the U.S. and sought an outlet to produce art pottery in Portland, Maine, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and finally in West Sterling, Massachusetts. He bought the old Wachusett pottery there in 1898 and made a wide range of items, carrying out most aspects of production himself. Green and brown glazes, both matte and gloss, were most popular. Walley died in 1919, and the pottery closed.
label: Description
content: About the Object:
label: Description
content: Pottery vase with tapering contour and speckled green matt glaze. Marked "WJW," made by William J. Walley, West Sterling, 1900-1917.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, West Sterling
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: Lura Woodside Watkins
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.392536
label: catalog number
content: 392536
label: accession number
content: 196885
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vase
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, green (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 in; 17.78 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 in x 3 5/16 in; 17.78 cm x 8.4455 cm