| Object ID |
1975.180a,b |
| Object Name |
Cooler, Water |
| Dimensions |
H-33.5 inches |
| Early Date |
1850 |
| Late Date |
1859 |
| Description |
Before the advent of electric refirgeration, stoneware vessels such as this one were filled with blocks of ice and water to dispense cool drinks on hot summer afternoons. This water cooler, which was used in the lobby of the Hotel Putnam in Bennington for many years, is one of the largest and most boldly decorated vessels ever made by the Norton Pottery.
From 1793 until 1894, the Norton family made and oversaw the production of high quality, utilitarian, salt-glazed stoneware in Bennington. Using clay brought up the Hudson River from Long Island and New Jersey, and transported in wagons to Bennington from Troy, the Nortons made jugs, crocks, jars, bottles, and water coolers on the potter's wheel for local use and distribution thoughout New England and New York. Most of these vessels were painted with simple cobalt-blue floral motifs. However, occasionally they were painted with more elaborate and whimsical decoration. This water cooler, painted with three deer, fences, trees, a gabled house, pheasant, dog, and bird, is virtually a design sampler of the motifs the pottery used at its height in the 1850s.
Although the decorator of this vessel remains unknown, it is possibly the same person who painted similar encircling landscapes on a smaller, barrel-shaped cooler at the Bennington Museum and another, of almost equal size, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. |
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