Inspired by the developing American art pottery movement, Pauline Jacobus established the Pauline Pottery in Chicago in 1883. Five years later she relocated the successful company to Edgerton, Wisconsin to gain access to the area’s high quality clay beds. Like the Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati, Ohio, the Pauline Pottery employed large-scale production techniques. Ornamental wares such as vases and covered jars were pressed in molds, hand-painted by a staff of women decorators, fired in one of the pottery’s six kilns, and sold all over the country.

The Pauline Pottery emulated the forms and techniques of some of the most influential potteries and ceramic designers of its time. The long necks and globular bases of these ewers are similar to an early shape used by Rookwood. The molded dragon’s head handles reflect the art pottery movement’s fascination with Japanese design. The hand-painted flowers outlined in black are reminiscent of the work of John Bennett, a widely admired decorator for the Doulton Pottery of London who relocated to New York City in 1877. The influence of Laura Fry, a Rookwood decorator who worked briefly with Jacobus in Chicago, is visible in the use of incising, gilding, and the spatter effect that was most likely created with the atomizer tool Fry invented.

Jacobus’s success inspired the creation of several more art pottery ventures in Edgerton. See more examples of Pauline Pottery and other Edgerton art pottery in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database.