Rare spongeware exhibit set at ABAC ag museum

TIFTON — A redesigned spongeware and splatterware pottery collection from the 1800s will take center stage at 9 a.m. on April 6 when it becomes a part of the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village’s permanent display during the annual Folklife Festival.

Museum Curator Polly Huff said the exhibition will include all the display pieces that museum guests have come to know, as well as several dozen never-before-seen pieces that were in storage for the last nine years. The large collection includes a wide range of functional and decorative selections, many of them rare and one-of-a-kind.

All three of the antique handmade cabinets that were initially donated with the pottery will also be on display. Admission to this exhibit is included in the general museum admission and free with a valid museum season pass.

“We’re fortunate to be one of the very few museums with a large and intact 1800s spongeware and splatterware pottery collection,” Huff said. “The unique collection consists of an impressive 153 pieces of spongeware and the early splatterware, all varying in style, size and function.

“The collection was donated to the museum in 2010 as we were transitioning under the operation of ABAC. The donor, Susan Burnett of Macon, donated the entire collection of pottery along with three antique display cabinets in memory of her friend Karen Lee De Vance.”

When the collection was donated, a part of it was placed on display at the museum, a part of it was placed in storage, and several pieces of it went on display in the renovated Tift Hall on the ABAC campus.

Huff began a process of inventory and redesign in January of the spongeware exhibit, assisted by Noelle Konich, a writing and communication major from Tifton, who is working as a curatorial intern during the 2019 spring semester.

Konich has worked on all steps of the refurbishment including inventory, conservation and stabilization, research, redesign, and installation. Vintage historic photos will be featured in the new exhibition to help tell the story of these unique pieces of pottery.

Huff tasked Konich with finding new information to include in the exhibit’s interpretive panels, and Konich delivered. During the research phase of the project, she discovered connections to two historical figures, Emma Bridgewater and Josiah Wedgwood, who played major roles in the spongeware tradition. As a part of her internship, Konich also got to assist in piecing together a broken gold-gilded vase, a rare piece in the spongeware collection.

For questions about this and other museum exhibits, interested persons can contact Huff at [email protected].