Parlor stove

Stoves were an integral part of the parlor interior during the third and fourth quarters of the nineteenth century, providing much-needed warmth prior to the advent of central heating. The Low Art Tile firm played an indispensable role in ornamenting this utilitarian object for the Aesthetic interior. As the firm extolled in one of its promotional printed materials referencing the model of the current stove, it "harmonizes with the furniture, carpet and wall decoration of handsomely furnished rooms." The Low Art Tile works provided ornamentation for a number of different stove manufacturers, this one to the Groveland Foundry, in nearby Dighton, Massachusetts.




The J.G. & J.F. Tile Works was founded by John Gardner Low, with his father John Low, in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1878, and they were among the most innovative and important tile producers during the Aesthetic Movement in America. (The firm was originally the J. and J.G. Tile Works, but assumed the J. G. & J. F. name in 1883.) The products of the Low Tile Works during the 1880s received important critical evaluation both in the United States and abroad. They exhibited them and were awarded medals for their glazed tiles at international exhibitions in London, Paris, and Barcelona.





Although they are best known for the patterned tiles in rich, deep hues that were utilized to adorn interiors and fireplace facings in both domestic and public buildings, the firm also employed their tiles as decorative elements combined with metalwork in various forms for domestic and other uses, such as clocks (see 1993.5140), candlesticks, trivets, soda fountains, and perhaps most novel of all, their art stoves, as they were called. Although tile stoves had been known in Europe from the seventeenth century, this combination of ornamental cast iron and decorative tiles was unique to the Low enterprise. This example 1is embellished with the firm’s signature low-relief tiles covered in a rich blue-green glaze. The tiles themselves reference the object’s function: the group of putti at the top are gathered around a fire and carrying bundles of wood to keep it burning; the two figural tiles on the sides appropriately depict the "Woodsman," shown gathering fuel for a fire.