DOWN TO EARTH • Rufus Foshee has an acclaimed appreciation — and
expert eye — for the simple beauty of 18th- and 19th-century pottery
R
ufus foshee interrupts a conversation to go
to the door. His restorer is delivering a piece of
19th-century English pottery decorated in a pat-
tern called “Strawberry” — a white ground painted
with lush red berries, delicate green leaves, and
corkscrews of vines and runners. Where did he
find it? “Oh,” he says, “a young man up the road
said he had a bowl.”
Foshee lives in Camden, Maine, in a modest
antique ceramics expert Rufus Foshee proudly displays an assortment of creamware from his pottery collection in his home in Camden, Maine, where he runs his business.
house. His china cabinets are stocked with platters, bowls, cups, teapots: pottery painted with
intricate flowers or geometrical patterns in bright
red, green, orange, blue. Other pieces are undecorated, white or black or red, stark and architectural,
or elaborately pierced, or fluted and flared. In
their vivid brilliance, they seem like exotic birds.
It takes awhile for the eye to adjust to their gorgeous details.
RUFUS FOSHEE
ANTIQUES
Open by appointment.
Camden, Maine;
207-691-7342,
rufusfosheeantiques.
com.
