In the world of tableware and old pottery collectors, enthusiasts are familiar with pieces of pottery that composed, from the 1840s to the early 20e century, sets of tableware for ordinary families in Quebec and even sometimes in Ontario and the Maritimes.
Oatmeal bowls, serving dishes, plates and cups can be found on the sites of antique dealers, museums and collectors under the astonishing name of Portneuf pottery. However, there was never a pottery or earthenware factory in Portneuf or in the surrounding villages at that time. So why does it have this name?
Pieces for everyday meals
At the time of New France, then under the English regime, a large part of everyday tableware was imported from Europe. Ceramic factories began local production from around the 1750s, although indigenous peoples had been making them by hand for over two millennia! These pieces were made from clay or terracotta and were designed to be more utilitarian objects (jugs, teapots, plates, bowls, cups, etc.) than ceremonial. Fine porcelain services, hand-painted sometimes with silver or gold borders, were imported from Europe, especially after the Seven Years’ War, when the territories of New France were ceded and then administered by the British regime.
In fact, from the first years of the English regime, tableware from English potters arrived on the tables of the better off in the St. Lawrence Valley. This is among others the case of Staffordshire ceramics, which seduce with their plant motifs inspired by Chinese porcelain. But for the rest of the population, it is more ordinary clay pottery that adorns the tables. Thick, non-translucent, these earthenware pieces are durable and keep food hot. This does not prevent them from being beautifully decorated with patterns of flowers, farm animals or simple colored lines, which enhances everyday meals. These potteries were imported more from Scotland and more particularly from Glasgow, notably during the 19e century.
Julie Toupin 2018, Creative Commons, Pointe-à-Callière, City of Archeology and History of Montreal
Scottish pottery and Portneuvoise pottery
Scottish factories such as John Thomson’s Annfield potteries in Glasgow produced sets for Canada and Australia at this time. It is this type of tableware that we know under the somewhat mysterious name “Portneuf pottery”. If you have fun looking on Canadian museum sites, you will notice that several earthenware bowls, plates, cups and pints bear this name. They are made of everyday pottery and painted with sponge-applied designs, like Scottish pottery. However… despite archaeological excavations and archival research, there is no proof of any pottery factory, or even of a potter, in the village of Portneuf and its surroundings. You have to go to Cap-Santé to find a potter active in the 1850s-1870s, but he could never have produced as many pieces as what we find on the antiques market and in museums today!
Once upon a time… a ship?
Why does it have this name? In the middle of the 19e century, the Portneuf region seems in fact to have been a place of sale of these sets of everyday tableware, being a central transit area between Montreal and Quebec on the north shore. As the vast majority of these pieces bear no manufacturer’s signature, they thus earned their nickname “Portneuf pottery”. But why does the region seem to have sold a lot of them in the second half of the 19e century? A legend, not yet verifiable, has it that a Scottish ship carrying these goods destined for Canada was shipwreck in the Cap-Santé area. Residents could have saved numerous boxes of dishes and pots that were possibly heading to Montreal. Several families would have kept some for themselves, other people would have started selling them in the region or to people passing through the region.
This is how the name “Portneuf pottery” was born, which is so popular with collectors of rustic earthenware!