Bowl

Onondaga Pottery Co.

1903

6 x 12 1/4 inches (d)

Stoneware

2011.11

Gift of Barbara Fuldner

Stamped "O.P.CO. / SYRACUSE / CHINA."

Unlike the Arts and Crafts aesthetics promoted in The Craftsman, Stickley tended to be more conservative and refined in selecting the tableware for his public ventures like his 1903 tea room and his later Craftsman Restaurant. Although it may reflect the practical necessities of any commercial service—superior durability and uniformity of size and shape—the quite coloration and graceful shape subtly aligned with essential tenets of the Arts and Crafts movement.

If the choice of Onondaga for the tea room service seems today like local boosterism, it was more likely the firm’s national reputation and its local engagement with Syracuse’s burgeoning Arts and Crafts community. As early as February 1902, Adelaide Alsop Robineau's magazine Keramic Studio informed readers that she was collaborating with the company to raise the standard of its artistic wares. The following year, the magazine illustrated a number of her designs, two of which were produced by Onondaga.

Gustav Stickley / The United Crafts (by 1903 to 1942; then by descent.