Earlier this year John Case, standing, returned to Kingsport, Tenn., to present a lecture on early regional pottery to members of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) from Winston-Salem, N.C., who were visiting sites in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Case will travel to North Carolina to make another presentation to MESDA members in July. (Photography by Jeffrey Stoner)
Photography by Jeffrey Stoner and contributed by Case Antiques, Inc.
Q&A with JOHN CASE
What do you find most interesting about the pottery you have collected and sold?
There is a profound mystery afoot regarding the redware from the East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia area. While our region was often considered the "backcountry" in the 19th century in respect to culture, population density, economic conditions, and the arts, we had some of the most aesthetically beautiful pottery forms being produced anywhere in America.
For many years, the earthenware found in our region was considered to have been made elsewhere, because no one could conceive that such complex and artistically beautiful pieces could have hailed from our region. Much of our pottery was attributed to the 18th century Moravians in North Carolina and the even more prolific Connecticut and Southeastern Pennsylvania potters. It was even said that antique dealers in the early 20th century like Joe Kindig from Pennsylvania would come through the region, buy our pottery and other antiques, take them back up North and sell them as "Northern" pieces. Consequently, it is very plausible that there are some magnificent East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia pieces in New England and Mid-Atlantic pottery collections.
We have difficulty understanding how the population from our region could have supported potters making such magnificent and iconic objects. The use of complex copper oxide and manganese glaze decorations with elaborate stamping like we find on Greene County pieces was both time-consuming and expensive. Utilitarian pottery would usually be undecorated, more simply potted, and unglazed or glazed only on the inside. Yet the significant number of elaborately decorated forms with these complex glazes either attests to a population that economically could support potters making such wares or potters who made pottery for the sake of art, despite not being able to be compensated for wares with the extra "bells and whistles."
Some of the more beautiful jars and jugs made by Sullivan and Greene County potters have the artistic and historical merit deserving to be displayed in major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the finest American examples of their day.
I am greatly privileged to be involved with discovering, researching, and recording these great objects.
Any recommendations for new collectors?
While some of the finer examples of redware from our region have sold for large sums of money, many wonderful pieces are much more affordable and can be found in a variety of places, from garage sales to antique shops to auctions. The consignor who previously owned the record-setting J.A. Lowe jar said her children were using it as a waste can. So, you never know where these forms will show up.
While Southern pottery has become very popular in the past few years, much of the pottery from our region still remains undiscovered and largely unknown to the larger market. Consequently, once one learns the pottery forms and glazes from our region, you can often find our pieces when they come available in other regions of the country for modest sums, since it is often misidentified. When A! Magazine does articles like this one, it raises awareness and could end up preserving things in the process. After reading this, people could see similar things in their homes.
Lastly, collecting pottery, especially redware from our region, is exciting because of the sheer diversity of forms, glazes, and decoration on pieces. For example, the diversity of jug forms just attributed to the Cain pottery is vast. There are jugs with extruded handles, pulled handles, sine wave decoration or concentric ring decoration, and different glaze applications. Outsiders who learn of the pottery from our region are often taken aback by the variety of forms produced. This makes collecting area pottery especially fun, since each piece is often markedly different.
Historic Discoveries
Tell us about the potter who was hanged during the Civil War.
Christopher Alexander Haun (1821-1861) was a potter from Greene County, Tenn. Haun was a Union sympathizer during the Civil War and participated in burning a Confederate railroad bridge (Lick Creek) in Greene County. In 1861, Confederate forces captured Haun.
Several potters were among the men who conspired and succeeded in burning the bridge. However, the Union loyalists allowed the guards to go free, based upon their solemn promises to not reveal their identities. Union troops did not materialize as promised, and the Confederates were able to pursue and capture some of the perpetrators. The Confederate guards, who were allowed to live, were the very ones who served as witnesses to implicate the five men who were hangedd, four of them potters. Among those sentenced to hang was Haun.
Haun's pots clearly speak to his having been a master potter. In a letter that Haun wrote to his wife in his last hours, he said, "Have Bohanan, Hinshaw or Low [sic] to finish off that ware and do the best you can with it for your support." It is highly probable that Haun was referring to J.A. Lowe in this letter. The only known decorated J.A. Lowe jar has very similar characteristics to known C.A. Haun jars.
Have there been any recent sites/shards discovered?
We are fortunate that state archeologists have done surveys of several East Tennessee sites. Further, there were recent archaeological excavations of sites in Washington County, Va., with the support of the William King Museum in Abingdon.
One of the more recent discoveries was the Haun-Lowe pottery waste site in Greene County, Tenn. This site revealed shards marked "J.A. Lowe" along with a few "Haun" marked shards. We learned from the shard evidence that Lowe indeed potted in Greene County. Until 2008, no one had ever discovered an intact pottery form marked by Lowe. This all changed when a woman from Nashville walked in our gallery with a magnificent jar marked "J.A. Lowe" -- and it sold in our auction for $63,000, a record for Tennessee pottery.
Other discoveries?
Recently, we learned of another redware potter working in East Tennessee, Benjamin Wine. A beautiful jar had descended through the Wine family and the jar retained an old label referencing being made by the potter.
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