Rookwood Pottery: Over Ten Years of Auction Results 1990-2002
by Treadway Gallery, Inc. (Cincinnati, Ohio) in Association with John Toomey Gallery (Oak Park, Illinois). Paducah, Kentucky: Collector Books, 2003. 272 p., hdbk. $39.95.

A Price Guide to Rookwood
1993; Gas City, Indiana: L-W Book Sales, 4th edition, 2001. 264 p, pbk. $19.95.

Reviewed by: BY MARK BASSETT www.markbassett.com

Rookwood Pottery, by the Treadway Gallery (with John Toomey Gallery), is not a price guide in the usual sense. Instead, beautiful color photographs are captioned with auction results from 1990 to 2002, roughly in chronological order by sale. Represented here are most Rookwood glaze lines, shape families, and styles of decoration, which makes skimming through this volume a feast for the eyes. The emphasis is on slip-decorated Rookwood, although some commercial products are also shown. Recent auction results are rightly emphasized more than earlier sales. This decision was also a practical necessity, since Treadway Gallery did not publish full-color Rookwood catalogs until the mid-1990s. At only $39.95, the Treadway book is an affordable alternative to buying the full-color 12-volume set of Rookwood specialty auction catalogs (1990-2002) now being offered by Cincinnati Art Galleries for $343.75.
Because auction sales are conducted in public (unlike dealer sales at an antique show), most Rookwood lovers follow the Rookwood specialty auctions of Treadway Gallery (www.treadwaygallery.com) and Cincinnati Art Galleries (www.cincinnatiartgalleries.com), along with the Arts and Crafts auctions arranged by David Rago and his colleagues (www.ragoarts.com). Less experienced readers should remember--and Rookwood Pottery makes no mention of it--that all Treadway Gallery figures cited were increased by an additional "buyer premium"--an extra 10% charged to buyers, presumably to allow a lower commission fee to be charged to the seller. (The buyer premium at all three auction houses mentioned above is now 15%.)
There is another difficulty for the reader of this volume. Like practically all auction houses, Treadway Gallery places a reserve price on selected consignments, a figure that buyers must meet or exceed in order for an actual sale to take place. Although neither Rookwood Pottery nor Treadway Gallery’s individual auction catalogs is explicit in this regard, the "prices realized" published here (or in a lot-by-lot listing after a Treadway auction is held) do not show which items failed to sell because their reserve price was not met. Instead, for each lot this firm publishes the last "hammer price" announced on site, even for "no-sales" (also called "buy-ins" in the trade). In contrast, both Cincinnati Art Galleries and David Rago Auctions clearly indicate which lots failed to sell at one of their auctions.
Careful study of Rookwood Pottery enables one to locate items appearing at more than one Treadway Gallery (or Toomey Gallery) auction. In some cases, these selections may have failed to meet the consignor reserve. For example, an 8.5" handled bowl executed in 1909 with decorations by M. L. Perkins in the Standard Glaze and probably intended as a fern dish or for planting jonquils indoors, appears as Item 658 ("sold" on June 10, 1995 for $400), then again as Item 1015 ("sold" on June 7, 1997 for $400), and finally as Item 1359 ("sold" on June 6, 1998 for $350). The 1995 and 1998 estimate was $500-$700, although in 1997 it was estimated to sell for $600-800. What conclusion should a reader draw about the value of this piece--which may have failed to meet its reserve in all three auctions?
In other cases, a buyer may have purchased an item at one auction and subsequently consigned it for sale again. Witness a 10" vase decorated in 1908 by Carl Schmidt with a band of peacock feathers and glazed in the rare and desirable Sea Green. As Item 83 in Rookwood Pottery, this vase "sold" (at Toomey Gallery) for $4500 on April 5, 1992. Then on June 10, 1995 the vase reappeared on the auction market (at Treadway Gallery) as Item 708, and "sold" for $6500.
Other such duplications include the following pieces, identifiable by their Item number in the Treadway book: a 7" Standard Glaze 3-handled mug with ghost (Item 102 and 280); a 6.5" Venetian Scenic Vellum covered jar (Item 1109 and 1504); an 8.5" vase with drip glaze (Item 1605 and 1917); an 8.5" Matt Glaze vase with carved peacock feathers (Item 1910 and 2081); a 3" Aerial Blue cream pitcher with portrait (Item 2151 and 2256); and three Standard Glaze works with sterling overlay a 9" vase (Item 1869 and 2134); a 5" vase (Item 1888 and 2133); and a 5.5" vase (Item 1889 and 2135).

The popular L-W Price Guide to Rookwood Pottery is in its 4th edition, dated 2001. This book emphasizes vases, with smaller sections devoted to plaques, bookends, and tiles. The photography is about half color, half black and white. Somewhat more commercial work is illustrated here, in contrast to the Treadway guide, but again the chief focus is on slip-decorated work. Overall, the L-W Price Guide to Rookwood Pottery is a useful and affordable introduction to Rookwood values.
Because Treadway Gallery assisted L-W with photographs (and presumably with values), there is some duplication of images between the two volumes. These instances highlight the attention to detail that characterizes the L-W captions. In one such duplication, a Standard Glaze ghost-decorated mug--which was "sold" at Treadway on April 5, 1992 for $2300 and then again on June 4, 1993 for $3500--has a metal rim that the Treadway Gallery book does not mention. On page 85 of A Price Guide to Rookwood, L-W offers a detailed description of the metal work: "band of silverplated bronze overlay forms design of cloud and moon around top. Inscribed in overlay, ‘St. Louis Harvard Club from Cincinnati Harvard Club.’" In the 2001 L-W volume, the mug (which according to Treadway Gallery has a "repaired handle") is valued at $3000-4000 (no repair mentioned).
Neither volume is likely to have the kind of scrupulous accuracy that one would expect from a Rookwood scholar. In other words, caveat emptor! ("buyer beware!") is an appropriate reminder regarding shape numbers, dates, spelling, artist signatures, etc., as they are regarded in these price guides. When lightly die-impressed or otherwise illegible marks prompt historians to consult the Rookwood shape guide (see The Second Book of Rookwood Pottery, by Herbert Peck), neither Treadway Gallery nor L-W Book Sales may have taken that step. A brief double-check of the bookend section of the L-W guide identified 3 errors and 1 omission in citing shape numbers, among a total of 16 images (pp. 222-231). Neither volume’s text is likely to jive with the definitive glaze research published by Anita J. Ellis in Rookwood Pottery: The Glaze Lines (1995). One wonders why the L-W editors chose to devote 39 pages to advertisements without providing dates or other publication information.
More troublesome, neither Treadway’s Rookwood Pottery nor L-W’s Price Guide to Rookwood explains that the careful study of comparable examples of Rookwood’s decorated wares can sharpen one’s estimations of value. Fortunately, many photographs in the Treadway volume illustrate groups of related works, which encourage this kind of comparison. In their one-page introductions, both books fail to offer any guidance in interpreting the values they provide, and there is no explanation (in L-W’s case) of how values were determined. (One wishes that the L-W book would incorporate these values into photo captions, instead of in an appendix.)

Mark Bassett is the author of several books on American art pottery, including most recently Understanding Roseville Pottery and Bassett’s Roseville Prices. His book American Art Pottery Wall Pockets is expected to be published by Schiffer in the spring of 2004. For more information, visit www.markbassett.com.

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