Pitcher

Charles Cartlidge and Company

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The mid-nineteenth century porcelain manufactory of Charles Cartlidge and Company in Greenpoint, Brooklyn produced a variety of slip-cast wares for the middle class market. The firm offered a wide array of forms which included tablewares and pitchers, along with mundane, everyday objects (inkstands, paper weights, spittoons, etc.) to highly specialized items. Among the company’s favorite designs are the relief-molded pitchers of either corn and cornstalks or oak leaves and acorns, like this example. The most significant Cartlidge pitchers are those with shields and inscribed with names, often made for tradesmen or saloon keepers. The size of this pitcher is unusual and it is one of only a few known of this large capacity. The inscription, "C. Cartlidge," is for the firm’s proprietor and factory founder Charles Cartlidge, in whose family this pitcher descended.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art