The Potteries of Trenton Society is pleased to partner with the New Jersey State Museum to present our annual lecture. Dr. Laura Microulis, Research Curator at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City, will discuss Trenton\u2019s Majolica Mania at the meeting to be held Saturday, April 4, beginning at 1:30 PM in the Auditorium of the New Jersey State Museum at 205 West State Street. The lecture is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Free parking is available in the lot behind the State Archives next to the Auditorium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colorful and\nwildly imaginative, the lead-glazed earthenware known as majolica was one of\nthe most significant innovations in nineteenth-century ceramics. Largely\ninspired by Renaissance maiolica<\/em>,\nmajolica proved to be the quintessential modern medium\u2014a material that could be\nmass-produced into myriad shapes and styles for both functional and ornamental\npurposes. Introduced in 1851 by the renowned English firm, Minton & Co.,\nand subsequently made by dozens of other Staffordshire factories, the eccentric\ndesigns, boldly molded forms, and richly colored glazes of majolica captured\nthe attention of consumers on both sides of the Atlantic\u2014the\npotteries of Trenton, New Jersey, responded accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Microulis will explore Trenton\u2019s role in the mania for\nmajolica from the American pottery displays at the Centennial Exhibition in\nPhiladelphia in 1876 to the financial demise of the last majolica factory in\nTrenton in 1897. She will demonstrate the importance of immigrant craftsmen, as\nwell as how new foods and fashions for the table, Aesthetic movement\nprinciples, and the widespread interest in botany impacted the design and\ndecoration of the ware. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Microulis, a material culture scholar with a specialization\nin nineteenth-century decorative arts and design, has been part of the\ncuratorial team behind the forthcoming exhibition and publication, Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in\nEngland and the United States, 1850\u20131915<\/em>, which opens at the Walters Art\nMuseum in Baltimore on April 27, 2020 and then travels to the Bard Graduate\nCenter in New York from September 25, 2020 through January 3, 2021. Majolica Mania<\/em> is the first major public\ndisplay of this material in nearly four decades. Featuring over 350 objects,\nfrom domestic vessels to monumental pieces shown at the World\u2019s Fairs, the\nexhibition and accompanying three-volume catalog consider the principal\ndesigners and manufacturers of the ware, its broad dissemination, and ultimate\ndecline within the social and cultural context of the Victorian era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1699,"template":"","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/potteriesoftrentonsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/events\/1697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/potteriesoftrentonsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/potteriesoftrentonsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/events"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potteriesoftrentonsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/potteriesoftrentonsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}