(9) Antique Rookwood Pottery Architectural Interlocking Floor Tile Pieces. Two central rounded hexagonal pieces with seven cog-like interconnecting rounded triangular pieces that would all go together to create a floor or wall mosaic. "RP" mark mostly rubbed off of several pieces, slightly visible on others. Lore among various collectors has it that these come from an abandoned design in the early 1900s, making them extremely rare and highly sought after. 

Condition Commensurate with age. 

Sizes: (2) 3 x 3 in., (7) 2 x 2 in. 

Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, daughter of wealthy businessman Joseph Longworth, founded Rookwood Pottery in 1880 after being inspired by what she saw at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, including Japanese and French ceramics. The first facility was located in a renovated school house in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio which had been purchased by Joseph at a sheriff’s sale. Storer named it after her father’s country estate near the city in Walnut Hills. Rookwood was particularly noted for its employment of women, many of whom were directly responsible for the proliferation of American Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts styles. Clara Newton was the archivist and general assistant, as well as a china decorator, for the first decade of the pottery, and Laura Fry started her career at Rookwood as a painter and teacher from 1881 to 1888. The second Rookwood Pottery building, on top of Mount Adams, was built in 1891 by H. Neill Wilson, and in 1896 E. T. Hurley joined Rookwood as their head designer, becoming one of their longest lasting employees with over fifty years of material to his name. The earliest work from the pottery was relief-worked on colored clay, in red, pinks, greys, and sage greens, but in the early 1890s Storer sought to develop a “standard” look for Rookwood, resulting in the “Standard Glaze,” a yellow-tinted, high-gloss clear glaze often used over leaf or flower motifs. Rookwood also produced pottery in the Japonism trend, after Storer invited Japanese artist Kitaro Shirayamadani to come to Cincinnati in 1887 to work for the company. In 1902 Rookwood began producing architectural pottery under the direction of William Watts Taylor, which rapidly gained national and international acclaim. Many flat pieces were used around fireplaces in homes in Cincinnati and surrounding areas, while custom installations found their places in grand homes, hotels, and public spaces such as Union Terminal in Cincinnati and Grand Central Station in New York City. The 1920s were the most prosperous years for the company, as they employed roughly 200 workers including sculptor Louise Abel and Erwin Frey, but they were hit hard by the Great Depression. Art pottery became a low priority, and architects could no longer afford Rookwood tiles and mantels. In 1936 several employees including Harold Bopp, William Hentschel, and David Seyler left the company and started Kenton Hills Porcelains in Erlanger, Kentucky. On April 17th, 1941 Rookwood filed for bankruptcy, and in 1959 they were purchased by the Herschede Clock Company, with production moved to Starkville, Mississippi. The expensive move and rapidly changing tastes coupled with their earlier losses led to all production ceasing in 1967. By 1982 the Rookwood name and remaining assets were in negotiations to be sold to overseas manufacturers. Michigan dentist and art pottery collector Arthur Townley used his life savings to purchase all of them, producing small quantities of pieces to maintain the original trademarks. Townley refused offers to sell Rookwood for over two decades, but eventually collaborated with Cincinnati investors Christopher and Patrick Rose in 2004 to move the company back to Cincinnati. In 2006 the Rookwood Pottery Company was formed, and in 2011 Martin Wade and Marilyn Scripps gained ownership, continuing to produce new pieces to this day from a production studio in the same neighborhood it first started in over a century before. A dedicated gallery of Rookwood Pottery is in the Cincinnati Art Museum, and masterpiece Rookwood pieces are exhibited at the Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Commensurate with age.