WHITE ALLIGATOR CRACKLE GLAZE LOW GRUEBY BOWL 1905

This wonderful tiny, Grueby bowl is glazed with that fantastically rare white, alligator crackle.  I love the contrast between the rough, scaly exterior and the smooth, glossy emerald green interior.  This piece dates to about 1905.

GRUEBY BUD VASE W/ LEAVES, ANNIE LINGLEY 1903

This is a great Grueby bud vase, hand-thrown with hand-applied leaf and pillar decoration, done by Annie Lingley in 1903. Ms. Lingley's conjoined "AL" sipher is visable just above the circular Grueby stamp on the bottom.

GRUEBY FAIENCE CO., SCARAB PAPERWEIGHT 1896-1902

These were made by the Grueby Faience Co., Boston, USA around 1900-1903. Hand-molded and hand-glazed. This was before Carter's discovery and the King Tut craze that would follow in 1910.

GRUEBY, 6.5 INCH CHUNKY GLAZE, MUSEUM PIECE, c.1903

This is a great piece which Peter has purchased for me. There is a small glaze slip, but with Grueby, individuality is everything. All Grueby is hand thrown and hand designed. Even similar shapes/designs, when compared side by side, are significantly different in technique and styling. Each Grueby is truly one of a kind. It is signed by the unidentified artist "ER", and still has its original Grueby Museum label. This piece dates from about c. 1903.

GRUEBY SIGNED 4" TOOLED BUD VASE, c.1903

This vase has 3 tiny buds tooled into 3 sides of the upper part of the rim. Good arts and crafts Grueby Pottery vase in a dark matte green glaze. Vase is 4 1/4" tall and 3 1/2" wide. Bottom marked with impressed Grueby Pottery flower mark and artist signed JAE. Rare find. From the third phase of Grueby Pottery, c. 1903.

GRUEBY, SECOND PHOTO SET OF MY VASE

GRUEBY POTTERY, 7.5" 5 LEAF/5 BUD VASE c. 1908

This is my lovely Grueby vase. Impressed on the bottom is the mark "Grueby Pottery Boston USA." It's hard to read beneath the glaze; I can make out the "...oston USA" at 5 o'clock and 2 o'clock, and the "..ery" at 12 o'clock. It is on it's way to me. I will have more pictures and more information when it arrives.

William H. Grueby (1867-1925) founded the Grueby Faience Company in 1897 in Boston, Massachusetts. Grueby was a ceramic artist who had been experimenting with more traditional styles when he traveled to Chicago to attend the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. At that venue, Grueby was exposed for the first time to the new matte glazes being introduced by French artisans around that time. Upon his return to his Boston home, Grueby founded the company and began a period of about five years during which he experimented and perfected his own matte potttery glazes. Focusing mostly on art pottery vases, he introduced his first line of matte glaze wares in 1898; these were different than anything which had been on the market before, and colors of green, pink, aqua, and yellow were introduced in the new glazes. Of the new color glazes, the matte green most associated with Grueby pottery was the most unique and popular and to large degree remains so today. Soon thereafter, Grueby began working with other top artisans and manufacturers such as Gustav Stickley and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Stickley mission style Arts and Crafts furniture was a perfect complement to Grueby's pottery lines, and they were often displayed together in showrooms, expositions, and trade fairs. As further evidence of the synergies between these companies, Grueby lamps and vases were also featured in Stickley catalogues and in magazines devoted to mission style arts and crafts. While less obvious artistically, it is also interesting to note the pairing of Grueby ceramic lamp bases with Tiffany Studios glass lamp shades, a combination that is quite rare and highly collected in today's market. Like many manufacturers entering the industrial age, Grueby works were frequently copied, and much less expensive works were offered to a mass market with similar but admittedly inferior glazes. Nevertheless, the competition represented by the mass market production of similar glazes and styles had a major financial impact on Grueby's fortunes, leading to the bankruptcy of the company in 1909. Grueby emerged from bankruptcy shortly thereafter, and they continued to offer limited production runs of ceramic pottery, statuary, and tiles for another ten years before closing the doors in 1920.