Marked Avon Faience Company Arts and Crafts Earthenware Pitcher. Pretty yellow flowers and green grass designs on both sides. Stamped on underside. 

Size: 6 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. 

The Vance and Avon Faience Companies of Tiltonsville, Ohio, often conflated into the Vance Avon Company, were two variations of the same organization. Vance Pottery was named after J. Nelson Vance, an industrialist from nearby Wheeling, West Virginia who branched out into art pottery in 1900. Together with John D. Culbertson and Charles W. Franzheim, the former founder of Wheeling Pottery Co., he enlisted artisans like Rudolph Lorber and Frederick Rhead to come up with original Arts & Crafts forms. Lorber and Rhead would both later go on to much success at Zanesville’s Weller Pottery. When Lorber left the company in 1902, William P. Jervis took over as manager of the pottery, and the name was changed to Avon Faience Co. However, they continued to use Vance molds for the next few years, but the company ceased all artware production in Tiltonsville in 1905, with production of the Avon line moved to Wheeling and changed from earthenware to semi-porcelain. There is much debate about when Avon ceased its operations altogether, as the cross-pollination of workers, forms, and concepts was so great that it is difficult to distinguish ownership of many pieces from the region. By 1917 most of the original designs were no longer being produced due to economic difficulties brought on by World War I, and today pieces from both companies as well as their numerous successors are highly sought after both for their history and their look.