Weller marks

How to read it

Samuel Augustus Weller set up his pottery in a log cabin at Fultonham, near Zanesville, in 1872, and moved to Zanesville, where between 1882 and 1890 it grew by building and buying factories, the Wisconsin Pottery Association records. In 1894 he bought William Long's Lonhuda pottery, whose underglaze-painted ware became Weller's Louwelsa line, and the association calls Weller the first mass producer of art pottery. That kind of ware, painted under a glaze on tinted and blended grounds, is the class Edwin AtLee Barber credited Rookwood with originating. By 1905, in the association's account, Weller was the largest producer of art pottery in the world. The firm was incorporated as S.A. Weller, Inc. in 1922. The Essex Wire Corporation bought a controlling share in 1947–48 and closed the pottery in 1948.

Also searched as: weller mark, weller pottery, weller pottery marks.

What Weller marks look like

Barber's Marks of American Potters (1904) lists the art wares by name, Eosian, Aurelian, Louwelsa, Auroral, Dickens and Turada, and says the marks are the names of these wares; Louwelsa is a word made from the names of Weller and his daughter Louise. Pieces in the Zanesville Museum of Art show how the mark changed across the firm's lines.

The museum notes that few pieces bear the WELLER / FULTONHAM O. mark. The Velva vase also has a paper label reading WELLER / BLUE VELVA / WARE.

Signatures on the side: Sicard

In 1901, Barber writes, Jacques Sicard, who had worked at Clément Massier's pottery at Golfe-Juan in France, came to Weller and perfected a metallic lustre ware named Sicardo-Weller. The Wisconsin Pottery Association says his pieces were often signed Sicard on the side of the vase, and that he left for France in 1907. Barber also printed the initials and ciphers of Weller's decorators, which appear on painted art ware alongside the factory mark.

Weller's neighbours in Zanesville

When Weller moved to the banks of the Muskingum River, the association writes, potteries that became household names followed, among them Roseville, J. B. Owens, McCoy, Watt, Hull, Brush and Robinson Ransbottom. Designers moved between them: Frederick Hurten Rhead worked at Weller in 1903 and 1904 before becoming Roseville's first art director.