Clifton Ware Indian Line Ceramic Humidor circa 1900s A2371

Glazed interior. The lid is chipped and cracked (as shown).

Measures 5 3/4" x 6 1/2" x 6 1/2". Rare.

The Clifton Art Pottery was founded in 1906 by William A. Long, a peripatetic ceramist from Ohio. He had worked in imitation of Rookwood Pottery’s Standard ware at the Lonhuda Pottery in Steubenville, Ohio, and then moved to Denver where he founded the short-lived Denver China and Pottery Company. Long moved to the East Coast, and he established his new business in Newark, New Jersey. Clifton undertook to produce several different lines, one of which was called Crystal Patina, which featured a matte glaze with small flecks of crystallization, and a second line utilized seductive aventurine glazes that glittered with metallic flecks. A third and equally distinctive type of art pottery produced at Clifton featured American Indian designs, painted with black and white slips against the terra-cotta ground (see 1998.168). The Clifton Art Pottery lasted only briefly. Long left in 1909, returning to his native Ohio, where he worked for the Weller and Roseville potteries.