You Just Never Know Where You’ll Find Majolica

Galveston Island, Texas c.1890

A reader told me a surprising story. 

During the pandemic she and her mother spent quite a bit of time strolling the beaches of Galveston Island, Texas. During that time they would stumble across pieces of pottery and glass that had been discarded over the years—fragments of history.

Galveston Island’s Stewart beach

Blue transfer pieces of Wedgwood's Ivanhoe pattern.

Wedgwood Ivanhoe plate

The nature of these broken shards she collected over the years vary widely, as you imagine they would, encompassing a number of different things. Among the things she has collected are pieces of transferware, as shown above, tiles, insulators, utilitarian pottery and, yes, majolica. 

What surprised me about this is that the majolica was instantly recognizable. How ever do you imagine, did Etruscan Majolica show up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico?

Fragments of majolica found on Galveston beach

Many years ago I spent quite a bit of time on the beaches of Galveston and simply couldn’t imagine how any majolica at all got there. As rare as majolica is in the Houston area outside of antique stores, Etruscan is even more rare. Yet here it was, clearly identifiable from the GSH catalog number on one of the pieces. She found several shards from an Etruscan Cauliflower teapot on the beach.

Fragments of an Etruscan Majolica teapot found on Galveston beach

E-13 Etruscan Majolica teapot

The shards, their sharp edges worn smooth by decades of immersion in the churning water of the surf, still bore parts of their bright shiny glaze. One piece was clearly recognizable as part of a handle. Another showed a leaf that once encircled the teapot. Others showed the majolica pink glaze that lined the interior of the teapot. Like fossils uncovered, they spoke of a previous life in Victorian America long lost. 

The reader told me that the area of the beach where the pieces were found was adjacent to the home of a wealthy Galveston family. Maybe these shards belonged to a teapot that once served the family tea, only to be discarded when broken many years ago. Or possibly these were the remains of a teapot ordered from the 1884 New Orleans Cotton Centennial Exposition at which Griffen, Smith & Company exhibited. These could also be artifacts from the great hurricane that ravaged the city in 1900 killing many thousands of its residents and causing millions of dollars in damage. 

If only objects could speak!

6,000+ people were killed and 10,000 left 

homeless from the 1900 Great Galveston Storm.

It reminds us that those things we collect are far more than objects of beauty. They have their own history and were once a part of the everyday life of people like us, just going about their business day by day. They were made to be used and loved. It sort of puts our collections into perspective.