Small Bowl China, 1745-1760

Porcelain Prior to the Revolution few Valley inhabitants owned expensive porcelains imported from China. References to chinaware or "cheney ware" in seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century estate inventories are rare and confined exclusively to the estates of the wealthiest Valley inhabitants. In this class was the Northampton lawyer, Major Joseph Hawley (1723-1788), the original owner of this bowl. As the eldest son of Lt. Joseph and Rebecca Stoddard Hawley and the grandson of Northampton's powerful minister, the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, Hawley was assured high rank in Northampton society. Hawley studied theology under his cousin, Jonathan Edwards, and served as chaplain during the French and Indian War. He was actively involved in civic affairs, serving as Northampton's representative to the General Court and in other lesser offices. Although the inventory of Hawley's estate does not survive, his will from 1788 records a gift of about one thousand acres of land to the inhabitants of Northampton for use to support a school. This small bowl or slop dish is decorated with blue under the glaze and red over the glaze. The type is probably what Frederick Rhinelander cites in his order books as "burnt China." The form was probably used to contain wasted tea leaves. Waste bowls, or slop dishes, begin to appear with some frequency in estate inventories about 1745 and reflect the increased interest in tea drinking in the Connecticut Valley. This bowl was probably part of a larger tea service used by Hawley to entertain guests, and is the earliest known porcelain form with a history of ownership in the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, a reflection of the rarity of this precious material at the time.

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