California Pottery Planter-- McFarlin Horse and Foal Head.

This planter was a bit of test for me. I don’t regularly collect ware from California potteries but this one seemed fun, a planter with the nicely modeled head of a horse and a foal. On the back of the figure was an impressed name that after rubbing with pencil I made out to be © Mcfarlin. Plugging the name into my favorite search engine came up with several examples of McFarlin and Freeman-McFarlin pottery but not a lot of information

On one site devoted to animal figures-- Freeman & McFarlin's minuature animals are of interest to collectors-- I found that McFarlin's business had a beginning date of 1927. On California pottery site I found that Gerald McFarlin and Maynard Anthony Freeman had formed a partnership in the mid 1940’s (other sources say 1950). McFarlin was an established Southern California potter. Freeman was just out of the service. During World War II when it became illegal to import Japanese items directly from Japan there was a boom in interest in pottery made in the United States and California (along with Ohio and several other pottery producing states) benefited from it.

My planter is only marked McFarlin but because it is marked in the mold, this does not necessarily mean that it predates the creation of the partnership. It does probably mean that the mould predated the mid 1940s.

The base has a mould line and three stilt marks. It is also evenly covered by a clear glaze.