Rookwood Pottery Marks

Starting in 1879, Maria Longworth Nichols Storer was experimenting with ceramics, growing out of an interest in china painting. According to Maria, it wasn’t until 1883 that Rookwood Pottery turned into more of a formal business operation, because of William Watts beginning as a manager, producing Mary Louise McLaughlin’s method of “Cincinnati faience” or impasto decoration.  Laura Fry’s atomizer application of colored slips became the principal method of decoration after 1884 which led to their Standard, Iris, Sea green, and Vellum glazes. After winning gold medals in Paris in 1900 Rookwood went on to became a commercial success, one of the largest American potteries employing scores of artist decorators and mass-producing pottery in the greatest variety of any of the other large potteries of its kind. Production ware, molded without artist decoration began in 1904. Rookwood entered bankruptcy in 1941 and has sold multiple times up to the present day