Royal Haeger Green

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, I thought I'd feature some gorgeous green for Vintage Thingie Thursday.

I've been collecting Royal Haeger art pottery for over 10 years. There's just something about the fluid curves, elegant design, and beautiful glazes of these pieces that appeals to me.

Here are a few pieces of Royal Haeger from the 1940s and '50s in the "green agate" glaze, which is a lovely deep green with blue marbling.

Haeger Potteries was established in 1871 in Dundee, Illinois. The Elm Leaf vase bears an original sticker indicating it was a 75th anniversary piece, which dates it to 1946. It stands 12-1/2 inches tall.

This Sailfish vase is 9-1/2 inches high. How about that rolling sea?

Both the Elm Leaf and Sailfish vases were designed by Royal Hickman. According to The House of Haeger 1914-1944, by Joe and Joyce Paradis:

In 1938, Haeger broke the inertia that had hit commercial art pottery by bringing to its staff the exceptional Royal Hickman, a largely self-taught designer with a finger directly on the pulse of the people. His natural gifts were such that he could work in many styles; but his personal contribution to design was one that might be called "New Baroque," a sculptural style rooted in nature but with a flamboyance, energy, and richness that was new to American ceramics. It could be considered a further development of the naturalism in Art Nouveau as found in the ceramics of Louis Comfort Tiffany and turn-of-the-century Artus Van Briggle, but it goes well beyond them in the extent of its movement and sensuousness.

Royal Hickman designed numerous pieces for Haeger during the period 1938-1944 and on a freelance basis thereafter, but "his single subject of greatest public appeal was a black panther. As a planter, a lamp, or simply a figurine, it became a major icon in the American middle class home for over twenty years and is still around in a multitude of imitations."

Perhaps you've seen one of them:

Haeger also produced, on a limited basis, work done by individual designers in their own homes and studios. The Prancing Horse Lamp was a Studio Haeger design from the 1950s, when Haeger began making TV lamps. I found this one in an antique shop in Galena, Illinois a few years ago.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing just a few examples of Royal Haeger pottery. Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to visit Colorado Lady and everyone participating in Vintage Thingie Thursday!