Bowl

M. Louise McLaughlin was a true pioneer in the development of artistic ceramics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 1870s she was one of the first in the United States to learn and disseminate the challenging medium of barbotine, a painterly mode of decorating earthenware with slip under the glaze. Similarly, in 1898, she was the first to master the difficult medium of making and decorating porcelain in a small studio, outside of a larger factory setting, when she first developed her Losanti porcelain production in a shed in her backyard in Cincinnati. Much of the decoration was painstakingly carved into the leather-hard surface before glazing and firing.This bowl dates to the mature part of her career and is a very early example of her hand modeled porcelain. With its thick layers of glaze and unembellished surface, it appears to be from very early in this period of growth and experimentation.