I fell in love with this piece when I saw it at an auction a couple of years back. It had the look of a well-made, good quality pottery, I loved the color and I liked the idea of a flower vase in the shape of a flower. I bid and wound up winning it for just a few dollars. I tried putting flowers in it once, but the flowers and the vase seemed to be fighting for attention. Since then, I prefer to display this pretty vase on its own.

When I got the vase home from the auction, I noticed the word “Gonder” faintly inscribed on the bottom and decided to investigate. It turns out that many pottery lovers collect Gonder, though it’s not as well known as pottery brands such as Roseville or McCoy. Gonder Ceramic Arts Inc. was founded in 1941 by Lawton Gonder in Zanesville, Ohio, which was home to several other pottery manufacturers including Roseville.

Lawton Gonder had spent his career working with tiles and pottery, and he brought many innovative ideas to his company. He took pride in creating high quality, artistic pottery, and Gonder Ceramic Arts Inc. hired top artists to design the pottery. Over the years Gonder introduced a number of innovations in glazing, such as a gold crackle glaze and a glaze that resembles flames. He also created a popular line of reproductions of pottery he had acquired from a Chinese museum. As cheap foreign imports flooded the American pottery market in the fifties it became more difficult to compete, and the company was sold in 1957.

Because the company was only in business for 16 years, Gonder pottery can be more difficult to find than other types of collectible pottery. When purchasing Gonder pottery, look for the name “Gonder” on the bottom of the piece, as well as the mold number. You can visit the online Gonder Museum to see photos of the different styles of pottery made by Gonder.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 17th, 2006 at 8:37 am and is filed under collecting fyi, flea market finds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.