FAHRENHEIT 2300 by Crocker Farm

An important large-sized redware dog by the Bell family will cross the block in our January 30th auction of the William Kelly Young collection. Measuring 8 3/4″ long by 8 5/8″ tall, the figure is one of a small number of this size known to have been produced by members of the Bell family in Strasburg, VA and Waynesboro, PA. The standing pose and robust body form, finished with a curled tail and large flattened ears, are characteristic of the Bells’ work. Examples of this general style by various members of the Bell family are documented in The Shenandoah Pottery by Alvin H. Rice and John Baer Stoudt, Folk Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley by William Wiltshire, III, and The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region

Large-Sized Standing Redware Dog by the Bell Family. To be sold in the Wm. Kelly Young Collection on 1/30/10.

by H.E. Comstock. These pieces include a few by John Bell and his son, Charles Frederick Bell, of Waynesboro, a pair by Samuel Bell of Strasburg, which descended to his son, Ashby, and a pair by Samuel’s son, Charles Forrest Bell, now in the Henry Ford Museum. An oustanding punch-decorated dog with monkey rider, attributed to one of Samuel’s sons, also bears similarities in form and size. Interestingly, the dog selling in our January 30th auction is pictured on p. 264 of The Shenandoah Pottery, catalog-numbered 157, indicating that it was collected by Alvin Rice in the Shenandoah Valley prior to 1929. The damage visible in the photo, including an area where a basket was once connected to its neck, has since been restored.

The dog is constructed from two conjoined, wheel-thrown cylinders, one forming the body and the other forming the neck. (Many of the animals produced by various Pennsylvania makers have a similar hollow-bodied construction.) Several balls of clay were placed inside the dog’s body prior to firing, causing the figure to rattle when shaken. To prevent damage during the firing, vent holes were bored into the corners of the dog’s mouth, the lower breast, and between the back legs. The famous Solomon Bell redware lion in the MESDA collection, as well as a John Bell stoneware lion, are also vented through the breast and mouth, as noted by Shenandoah pottery authority, H.E. Comstock (Comstock, pp. 151, 232).

As noted by authority, H.E. Comstock, the Bells used a distinctive stamp, composed of an oval with an inner arching line, to produce the eyes and decorated the bases of many of their animals.

The animal’s fur is produced from numerous diagonally-incised lines. The toes with incised demarcations and unusual incised toe nails are also visible on two of the feet. One of the most distinctive “Bell” features of the dog is its impressed eyes, composed of an oval with an inner arching line. This decorative stamp is used to create the eyes and embellish the bases of several animals produced by the Strasburg and Waynesboro Bells (Comstock, p. 155).

The surface is decorated in daubs of manganese and cream-colored slip and coated in a clear lead glaze. The use of a simple lead and manganese glaze is typical of Bell animals, as well as most animals produced by various other 19th century potters. However, the addition of cream slip spotting is unusual for animals made by the Bells (or those by any potter for that matter). The overall color is remarkably similar to a pair of cats and a seated dog attributed to Solomon Bell and pictured on pp. 232 and 233 of The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region.

True Bell animals are quite rare and have been increasingly difficult to find in the antiques market. The family’s notoriety for producing figural pieces, coupled with the desirability of Bell pottery in general, has led to numerous erroneous Bell attributions. (A look at the Sotheby’s catalog for the auction of the Pauline Heilman collection, held way back in 1982, will give you an idea of these frequent errors.) This dog is a different story. With a firm attribution and Rice provenance, this example is the first of its size and origin to sell at auction in some time, with many of the “BELLS” and whistles one looks for in a quality American redware dog.

Texas stoneware temperance snake jug by John L. Stone.

The Texas stoneware snake jug we will be selling on January 30 was one of the highlights of Kelly Young’s prominent collection of antique American utilitarian ceramics. We featured a picture of Mr. Young holding the jug on the title page of our current catalog (see below). The jug is also one of the most monumental examples of nineteenth century American folk art we have ever handled. A large snake forms the handle of the jug. His head protrudes from the other side of the jug top, biting the head of a man in a bizarre predicament–his lower half hanging out the side of the vessel. Another snake, a centipede, and a lizard also hug the surface of the jug. Several inscriptions highlight the scene. The two most prominent, as if written on plaques, are the maker’s inscription and the name of the pottery where the jug was made: “MADE & PRESENTED TO THE Fire Brick & Tile Company By J.L. STONE”  and “J.P. Johnson & J.W. Dillon / MANUFACTURERS/ OF / ALL KINDS OF / STONEWARE / Kosse Texas.” (Note that we cataloged the jug as reading “J.F. Johnson,” but after subsequent research and study, it reads, “J.P.”)

Kelly Young with one his collection's highlights.

Surrounding the unfortunate man’s body are the words “First Attempt,” topped by the phrase, “Go in lemmons (sic) and come out squeezed.” Words beneath the man’s head read, “The Result.” To the right of the handle, what appears to be a brick is incised “Timse’s Best,” probably referring to a worker at the brick company.

While trying to do further research and put this remarkable jug into better context, I noticed that another example of Stone’s work was acquired by the Bayou Bend Collection of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in 2003. A large stoneware spaniel, measuring 11″ tall, was made in a style rarely seen in American stoneware. Instead, it was made in a manner most associated with redware figures of the time period–a dog on base, standing in the front, seated at the back, incised to create fur on the body and the ears. This Midwestern pottery dog that straddles the line somewhere between redware and stoneware resembles the Stone spaniel in its body shape, tooled fur to body and ears, and smooth face and legs. Stone’s dog differs, however, in its clear spaniel breed, its size, a large base (reminiscent of that seen on some molded King Charles spaniel figures made out of various types of pottery in the nineteenth century), and its clear stoneware clay body. No slip decoration–such as cobalt or manganese–decorates the dog. Prominently incised on the front of the base are the initials “J. L. S.,” referring to John L. Stone.

Stone’s snake jug is most closely related to very similar vessels made by the famous brothers, Wallace and Cornwall Kirkpatrick, at Anna Pottery in Anna, Union County, Illinois–so closely related, in fact, that part of my motivation in researching Stone was to try to tie him to that prolific duo (or at least figure out why something made in what could be called the “Anna Pottery school” was produced in Texas).

MADE & PRESENTED TO THE Fire Brick & Tile Company By J.L. STONE

According to an article in the March, 2003 issue of The Magazine Antiques, which describes recent acquisitions of the Bayou Bend Collection, Stone “came to Texas from Illinois and worked at a number of potteries in Limestone County, Texas, from about 1870 to 1900.” Diving into the federal census and also other period documents has enabled me to flesh out Stone’s life a bit more. Born on May 18, 1850 in Union County, Kentucky (according to a twentieth century passport application and immigration document), Stone was potting in Limestone County, Texas, by the time he was twenty years old–where, according to the 1870 federal census, he was clearly working with an Illinois-born potter named William C. Knox. Did Knox have ties to the Kirkpatrick brothers? Very possibly, but he had apparently left the state of Illinois sometime around 1855– judging by his children’s ages and places of birth–a few years before the accepted founding of Anna Pottery. Knox probably had trained as a potter in Illinois, but then spent some time in Kentucky before taking the helm of his own pottery in Hempstead, Texas (in Austin County, about 60 miles northwest of Houston) where he was working when the census taker made his rounds in 1860. About ten years later, Knox had moved about 100 miles up the road to Limestone County–probably in or near Kosse–and John L. Stone took his wife and baby boy and joined him there.

By ten years later, in 1880, John L. Stone was one of about seventeen potters or pottery workers operating in Kosse, and John Knox had turned, at least primarily, to farming. Although there was apparently one major pottery in the town at which the potters worked–Stone one of them–the census does not explicitly state who owned it. Turning to the Stone’s jug, then, which remains as a document of its own (albeit one made out of clay) we can use the census to try to interpret the pottery situation in Kosse during the time period.

J.P. Johnson & J.W. Dillon / MANUFACTURERS/ OF / ALL KINDS OF / STONEWARE / Kosse Texas

According to the 1880 census, J.W. Dillon was a merchant who apparently also owned hotel, which his wife kept. He was born circa 1842 in Georgia to immigrants from Great Britain. J.P. Johnson, on the other hand, was listed as a “Brick Mason,” born circa 1840 in Virginia. Based on the records I have access to, it seems very probable that sometime around 1880, Dillon and Johnson struck up a partnersh1ip and began manufacturing stoneware in Kosse; they probably also owned the Fire Brick & Tile Company, which seems to have been run, however, as a separate concern. Three potters, another pottery worker, and one brickyard worker were all residents of Dillon’s hotel in 1880.

Fleshing out the meaning behind the jug’s inscriptions further, the name “Timse” likely refers to a member of one of the Tims families, one a family of free blacks, who lived in the area. At least three free African-Americans were employed at the pottery in 1880, and it seems one of the Tims’s worked in the brick and tile company.

John L. Stone. Probably taken sometime circa 1890.

By 1892, Stone moved to Washington state, where he was probably working at some as-yet-unknown pottery, but returned to Texas, probably initially Limestone County, by the early 1900′s. In 1910 he was working at the Athens Pottery Co. in Athens, Henderson County, Texas, about 100 miles northwest of Kosse. Along the way, he had at least 11 children with two different wives. Sometime after 1910, as Stone ventured into his 60′s, he divorced his wife and moved back to Washington, moving on to Los Angeles, California, by 1923. It was in that year that he, citing a desire to travel to Central America, applied for a U.S. Passport. The passport document contains very interesting information on Stone: his exact birth date and county of birth; his father’s name; his occupation (“Potter”); his physical description; his address in L.A. It also includes a photograph of Stone as an older man–another photograph of John L. Stone as a younger man also exists.

But the most fascinating part of the document is a notarized statement attached to verify Stone’s claims about himself, and brings us back to one of my prime motivations in researching Stone’s life. It reads,

Personally came before me a Notary Public in and for said County and State aforesaid, C.E. Kirkpatrick, whom I know to be entitled to credit, and being duly sworn, on his oath deposes and says that his Post Office address is Anna, Union County Illinois age 71 years, and says that he is an … American Citizen a resident of Union County, that he has known John L. Stone as an American Citizen for Sixty years, and from what I know, and have heard he was born in Union County State of Kentucky on the 18th day of May 1850. That said information he has obtained from intimate association with John L. Stone and associates during said time that John L. Stone is known and has been known during said term among his associates as an American citizen.

Cornie Kirkpatrick's notarized statement for John L. Stone's passport application.

C.E. Kirkpatrick is none other than Cornwall E. “Cornie” Kirkpatrick, son of Cornwall Kirkpatrick, nephew of Wallace. Cornie’s statement provides a unique window into the interpersonal relationships of American stoneware potters in the nineteenth century. Incisive research into American stoneware paints a dim picture of a widespread network of potters and shops that, while financial competitors, often enjoyed strong bonds of friendship and cooperation, where potters worked at each other’s shops, and sometimes established relationships with many different manufactories in disparate places throughout their lifetimes. But this document reveals much not only about Stone’s development as a potter, but about a friendship that was probably a very common one amongst nineteenth century stoneware potters and artisans in general who shared a kinship based on their specialized knowledge of complicated crafts.

John L. Stone in his early seventies.

Cornie Kirkpatrick was born circa 1852, making him about two years younger than John L. Stone. While still a young boy, his father and uncle founded Anna Pottery in Anna, Illinois. Stone was born in Union County, Kentucky, less than 100 miles east of Anna. Kirkpatrick said he had known Stone for sixty years, establishing that Stone had arrived in Anna sometime circa 1863, when he was thirteen years old. The evidence suggests that Stone’s family moved to Anna around 1863 and that Stone apprenticed at Anna Pottery, learning the trade of potter that he would carry with him throughout his life, and became lifelong friends with Kirkpatrick in the process. Sometime in 1869 or early 1870, Stone left Illinois, possibly directly from his employ at the Kirkpatricks’ pottery, and went down to Texas, perhaps with the ultimate goal of striking out on his own. He met up there with another Illinois potter, William C. Knox, who was probably also associated with the Kirkpatricks in some way. Stone’s snake jug is closely modeled after similar jugs made at Anna Pottery, with men’s bodies forced through the jug in the same way; Stone seems to have literally grown up around such vessels and probably made them there, himself.

According to genealogist family members of Stone, John L. Stone died in 1928 in Limestone County, Texas. Unlike some potters who seem content to have produced mostly utilitarian ware and remain anonymous parts of larger potteries, Stone seems to have been essentially concerned with producing true art works that he signed, fired, then consigned to posterity. In this case, something he made about 130 years ago has helped us further uncloud our window into that time and into the artistic legacy of the Anna Pottery school of stoneware potters.

Author’s Note: The work of genealogists was invaluable in researching Stone’s life and discovering what I think is one of the most interesting documents I have ever come across while studying American stoneware. If you happen upon this blog because you also have information on John L. Stone or his family, please send me a reply or otherwise contact us. I would be more than happy to pass genealogical info along to these researchers.

Two exciting redware (or earthenware) animal bottles will cross the block in our January 30th auction of the William Kelly Young Collection. Both were purchased by Mr. Young in 1993 at Christie’s in New York City, in a sale that included several other fine examples of American redware and some stoneware. Both of these bottles were produced in Salem, North Carolina, sometime during the early part of the 19th century, by German-born potter, Rudolph Christ (1755-1833). Christ took control of the shop of deceased potter, Gottfried Aust, in Salem in 1789 and continued to work there until 1821 (Bivins, p. 30). He is most well-known for producing a variety of wonderful molded animal forms (along with a line of wheel-thrown vessels), including squirrels, owls, turkeys, crayfish, chickens, bear, sheep, foxes, and several sizes of fish.

Moravian Redware Squirrel Bottle by Rudolph Christ, Salem, NC. To be sold in the Wm. Kelly Young Collection on 1/30/10.

The first redware bottle of the two to be sold, in the form of a standing squirrel holding a nut, is decorated with daubs of manganese and copper over a yellow slip and covered in a clear lead glaze. The reddish-orange color of the underlying clay is visible on the underside of the bottle’s recessed foot. Interestingly, manganese is brushed in a figure 8 pattern on one leg. Whether this treatment was implied to mean the number 8 or whether it was merely the haphazard brushwork of the potter, we will never know. The glaze is remarkably similar to the “multi-glaze” or “polychrome glaze” used by the Bells and Eberlys of Strasburg, Virginia, several decades later. In fact, I have seen a few Moravian pieces misattributed to the Shenandoah Valley for this reason. In actuality, this glaze was meant to mimic a glaze popularized by the English potter, Thomas Whieldon, during the mid 1700′s (Bivins, p. 209). The second Moravian bottle is more stylized, in the form of a portly bear. The figure’s small mouth reveals a few tiny sharp teeth, and its right foot rests upon a slain animal, possibly a sheep or pig. Its surface is covered in a dark brown glaze composed of lead and manganese.

Until recently, the most exhaustive study of North Carolina’s Moravian redware was John Bivins, Jr.’s book, The Moravian Potters in North Carolina, which was written in 1972. This book is an excellent source of information, and I encourage anyone interested in this fascinating school of pottery to take a

Recessed base of the squirrel bottle, revealing the iron-rich clay underlying the bottle's slip coating.

look at it. However, new information has come to light since then, particularly in the last three years. At the time the book was printed, for example, the author’s knowledge of some of Christ’s rarest forms could only be gleaned from period inventory lists and the existence of the objects’ original molds. Regarding an owl form, Bivins notes “since no finished examples are available, we do not know for what use the owls were intended (Bivins, p. 204).” The same is mentioned regarding a fox mold. However, both finished forms have surfaced since that time, adding to our knowledge of this potter’s work.

The 2009 edition of Ceramics in America, published by the Chipstone Foundation, is dedicated entirely to the Moravian potters of North Carolina, offering a current look at their work with several new discoveries.  Edited by Robert Hunter and Luke Beckerdite, the book includes the following articles:

Eighteenth-Century Earthenware from North Carolina:
The Moravian Tradition Reconsidered
Luke Beckerdite and Johanna Brown

Staffordshire in America: The Wares of John Bartlam at
Cain Hoy, 1765–1770

Moravian Redware Bear Bottle made by Rudolph, Christ, Salem, NC.

Lisa Hudgins

Staffordshire Ceramics in Wachovia
Robert Hunter

Tradition and Adaptation in Moravian Press-Molded Earthenware
Johanna Brown

Salem Pottery after 1834: Henry Schavner and Daniel Krause
Michael O. Hartley

The Mount Shepherd Pottery Site, Randolph County, North Carolina
Alain C. Outlaw

Making a Moravian Faience Ring Bottle
Robert Hunter and Michelle Erickson

Making a Moravian Squirrel Bottle
Michelle Erickson, Robert Hunter, and Caroline M. Hannah

The front cover of this edition pictures an incredible copper-glazed figure of a fox clutching a chicken (which in my opinion is one of the finest examples of early American pottery I’ve seen in some time). Looking at this piece, it is easy to understand why there is such great interest in Moravian pottery among historians and folk art collectors alike. I recommend anyone interested in the charming and useful objects created by Christ and others from this tradition to take a look at Ceramics in America‘s latest installment, a great contribution to our knowledge of Southern decorative arts.

Miniature redware pot made by Absalom Bixler in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

The case of the “Absalom Bixler” group of redware is a very interesting one. Redware pieces bearing his name, or clearly by the same maker as those that do, have long stood as landmark pieces within the canon of antique American utilitarian ceramics. Decorated with applied, bright yellow and green figures of birds and cats, or with quite elaborate sgraffito scenes depicting subjects with incredible folk art appeal, one hallmark of Bixler’s pottery is the use of large, blocky printer’s type to inscribe the ware. Several of these bold impressions read “ABSALOM BIXLER TO HIS WIFE SARAH” (or variations thereof), but no explicit maker’s mark or signature exists on any of the vessels.

As I discussed briefly in my Henry Rambo article, names inscribed on nineteenth century American pottery can be problematic. Even pieces stamped with apparent maker’s marks can be difficult to evaluate. For instance, someone unfamiliar with the history of Alexandria potters might see a jug marked “E.J. MILLER / ALEXA.” and assume that, as with many other pieces with similar marks made in that city, E.J. Miller was the maker of the item. But he was not—he was a merchant who had the Milburn family of potters make stoneware for him. Nevertheless, in the case of small stamps applied to a vessel in the manner of a maker’s mark, the situation is usually fairly straightforward—if the name isn’t the potter, it was probably some other businessman who would be reselling or otherwise distributing the vessel to consumers. Other times a pot is inscribed in an unusual manner, but the potter makes it very easy on us. For instance, the work of Henry Lowndes in Petersburg, Virginia, is signed in large slip-trailed cobalt script across the front of the ware, “H Lowndes / Manufactor / Petersburg / Va” or “H Lowndes / Maker / Petersburg / Va.” We can thank Mr. Lowndes for being so clear, but he was a rarity. Had he not added “Manufactor” to the front of his pieces, and we knew nothing about Virginia stoneware, we would have to turn to period documents to figure out who H. Lowndes was. In fact, we might assume that he was some obscure individual for whom a jar was made. Even so, our understanding of period American stoneware and redware—beyond the most simplistic of evaluations—always demands that we turn, in one way or another, to contemporaneous documentary sources. In the case of H. Lowndes, someone, at some point, opened a city directory or some other document and determined that the potter’s first name was “Henry” and not “Horace” or “Hezekiah.” But far beyond fleshing out first names, period documents are absolutely vital in properly evaluating the bulk of eighteenth and nineteenth century American ceramics—and no more so than in the case of mystery names like “Absalom Bixler.”

The best evaluation and discussion of the Bixler group that I have seen was written by Cynthia G. Falk and published in the July 2003 issue of The Magazine Antiques. Her article, “Sarah Bixler’s Plates and Flowerpots” is a comprehensive study of what are by far some of the finest pieces of Pennsylvania redware to have surfaced. One of my favorite pieces of redware, period, is the flowerpot decorated with an applied cat stalking a bird, inscribed in type, “READY FOR A CATCH” and “ABSALOM BIXLER FOR HIS WIFE SARAH,” in possession of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Another piece I greatly admire is a redware plate with a sgraffito scene of a man holding a rifle with two Indians on horseback, inscribed in the trademark Bixler type around the rim in broken German, “DAUNAE.L BOON. DES FANKNESS INDAUNAS./1787″ (something like, “Daniel Boone’s Capture by Indians”); this piece, like several others, is housed in the Winterthur Museum. For those unfamiliar with Bixler’s work, I highly recommend you read not only Falk’s article, but see also Jeannette Lasansky’s “Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Pottery” in the September 1982 issue of The Magazine Antiques and The Pennsylvania German Collection by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Beatrice B. Garvan.

Falk sums up the various attempts, over the decades, to assign a maker to the “Bixler” pieces as follows:

[S]cholars have disagreed on who exactly made the Bixler plates and flowerpots. Miriam E. Bixler, writing in the Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society in 1977, asserted that Absalom Bixler was the potter. Without citing her sources, she stated that Absalom crafted pots, which he often signed “A. Bixler,” working in a little stone house on his property near Fivepointville in what is now East Earl Township, Lancaster County. She believed the building was originally the house of Absalom’s grandfather Abraham. According to Miriam Bixler, Absalom was a multitalented individual who worked as a farmer, woodcarver, maker of gunstocks, and justice of the peace, as well as a potter.

Later scholars, while continuing to cite to Miriam Bixler’s reference to Absalom as a jack-of-all-trades, have suggested another possible creator for the Bixler pottery. According to Jeannette Lasansky, Absalom Bixler was never taxed as anything other than a farmer, and his estate included no potter’s tools (although it did include printer’s type). Absalom’s brother, David, however, was taxed as a potter in Brecknock Township, Lancaster County, from 1841 to 1847, the year of their father, Abraham’s (1782-1847) death. The pottery was located on land previously owned by their father. Lasansky could not determine whether Absalom or David made the plates and flowerpots, since Absalom could have had access to the family pottery.

The case of Absalom Bixler, then, is a case where turning to period documents has unfortunately failed to give us the answers we seek. It also underscores the difficulty of researching artisans working in rural areas where city directories and even newspapers are rarely viable avenues for investigation—where (if, as in this case, the Census is no help) tax records, probate records (both of which Jeannette Lasansky attempted to use), land records, and other legal documents are our only hope of solving a mystery. Early researchers of American stoneware and redware have sometimes done the work for us, in one way or another, but often fail to cite their sources properly; in some cases we can reconstruct their work, in other cases we are forced to assess the credibility of their accounts and then make our own judgments.

Turning to the original text of Miriam Bixler’s article (“David Bixler, Folk Artist,” written mostly about Absalom’s brother, available in Vol. 81, No. 1 of the Journal of the LCHS), she writes,

Absolam [sic] (d. 1884), David’s brother, lived on the old homestead farm of his grandfather, Abraham Bixler, now occupied by Ammon Sauder, Denver R. D. #1. A deteriorating family graveyard is there. Absalom also was a Justice of the Peace as well as farmer, woodcarver, maker of gunstocks during the Civil War and potterer.

He often signed his pottery “A. Bixler” and worked in a little stone house on the property thought to be the original house. At a public sale of his goods over one hundred eighty planes were sold. A flowerpot inscribed “Abs Bixler to his wife Sarah, 1834 [sic]” is in the Titus C. Geesey Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Ms. Bixler does not cite her sources properly, but does include a list of source material at the end of her article. While her information about Bixler’s pottery may be apocryphal, the details do not seem to be merely “imagined” by a creative historian or otherwise made-up. Ms. Bixler interviewed antiques dealers, curators, a librarian at Franklin & Marshall, and, most importantly, two locals who would have been familiar with at least a rough account of Absalom Bixler’s life and work. One of her interviews dates back to 1963, when people whose parents had had direct contact with Bixler himself were still alive to tell their stories.

One of the most interesting parts of Miriam Bixler’s account is her statement that Bixler “often signed his pottery ‘A. Bixler.’” This does not seem like a fact pulled out of thin air, and, if the author is referring to a stamped maker’s mark, is consistent with the types of signatures found on plenty of other redware made up and down the east coast and westward. It would seem that if we could find a piece stamped “A. Bixler,” we would be able to put the matter to rest and say with confidence that Absalom Bixler was a potter and that he, beyond a reasonable doubt, made the group previously doubtfully attributable to him. A piece that we discovered in the Kelly Young collection can help us immensely in this regard.

Bottom of the A. Bixler pot, showing the maker's mark.

A miniature redware jar, covered in a lead and manganese glaze and measuring only 1 ¾” tall, is impressed on the bottom with one of the most important marks we have ever seen on a piece of American redware: “A. Bixler.” The typeface used to produce the mark is one I have never encountered on redware or stoneware. The style, a kind usually associated with Germany, prompted me to look into what sort of typeface this was. The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts has an amazing collection of period typefaces, The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection. According to the University the collection “is comprised of nearly 150 faces of various sizes and styles, including examples of the most popular printing types in use between 1828 and 1900 … .” Kelly, a “noted design educator, collector, and historian,” used his collection in the early 90′s to assist the Adobe software company in resurrecting period typefaces in digital form. One of the types featured in Kelly’s collection is particularly appropriate for our evaluation of the “A. Bixler” jar. Blackletter script and, more specifically, the blackletter typeface called “German,” are strikingly similar to the type used to produce Bixler’s mark. Click here to have a look. Note in particular the strange lowercase “x,” also seen on the bottom of the pot.

The 'A. Bixler' mark juxtaposed with a digital version of the 19th century wood type 'German.' (Note the strange 'x.')

According to Falk, printer’s type was sold in Absalom Bixler’s estate. While listed as a farmer in all Federal Census population schedules between 1850 and 1880, it seems that Miriam Bixler’s assessment of Absalom as a veritable one-man band of nineteenth century Pennsylvania handicrafts is correct. In their 2005 book, Flying Leaves and One-Sheets : Pennsylvania German Broadsides, Fraktur, and their Printers, Russell and Corinne Earnest note the existence of a book plate depicting a man surrounded by angels, Adam & Eve, and a sun face, inscribed, “This BOOK is the property belonging to ABM BIXLER ESQR,” probably printed, according to the authors, by Absalom Bixler in Lancaster County. (Bixler is referred to as “Absalom B. Bixler Esq.” in the 1860 Census.) Bixler’s work as a printer would explain the large, interesting type used to inscribe his redware in general, and would also explain the unusual (and apparently unique) blackletter script used to sign his miniature redware jar.

We are unaware of any other examples of American redware impressed with Absalom Bixler’s maker’s mark. It is hard to overstate the importance of this pot, which conclusively establishes Bixler as a potter and, by extension, the origin of the mystery group of Bixler redware. It also stands as an artifact of a man who clearly lived a life of artisanship and self-reliance, in this case combining his skills as both a potter and a printer to produce one object whose size does not belie its great significance.

Last August, when my father, brother, and I, traveled down to Ft. Worth, Texas, to take possession of Mr. Young’s collection, an interesting stoneware harvest jug sitting on his living room table caught my eye. According to Young’s daughter, it had been purchased by Mr. Young at an antiques show in New York City during the early 1990′s, where it had been erroneously described as a piece of Indian pottery.

Albany Slip Decorated Stoneware Harvest Jug with Rattlesnake Handle. To be sold in the Wm. Kelly Young Collection on 1/30/10.

The form of the jug itself was in the typical domed or beehive style characteristic of 19th century American stoneware harvest jugs. Yet the vessel was made extraordinary by the addition of a large applied rattlesnake, which curved around the body of the vessel and formed its handle. I was really taken with the look of the snake. The style was different than that of the Kirkpatrick brothers, who produced the majority of 19th century stoneware snake jugs. The head was not executed in the usual flattened, closed-mouth form characteristic of the Kirkpatricks’ work. Instead, the animal assumed an almost comical expression, as its large open mouth curved into a slight smile, exposing numerous applied teeth. The creature’s body was further embellished with numerous slashes of brushed Albany slip, and its tail ended in a thin rattle. I believe the jug was possibly made in the Midwest, where the majority of harvest jugs and snake vessels were produced during the 19th century. Yet the subject matter suggests it is more likely a product of the Southcentral U.S., possibly Texas, where the rattlesnake was a very familiar animal.

While cataloging this piece, I was wondering about its unusual form. The vast majority of harvest jugs known have two spouts, one on each side. One spout, which was larger than the other, was designed for pouring liquid into the vessel. A smaller spout on the opposite side was designed for pouring liquid out of the jug. This harvest jug, however, only had one spout, and nothing on the other side. As I studied the jug, I noticed a hole inside the back of the snake’s mouth. Seeing that the snake’s head rested on the jug’s finial, I wondered if the hole might connect through the finial to the interior of the vessel. I decided to do a test with water. After pouring a small amount of water into the tubular spout on the jug’s side, I carefully leaned the jug over a sink. Voila! The water began to flow from the snake’s mouth! Hence, a smaller,

The harvest jug's snake head spout in action.

pouring spout did exist on this jug. . . only in the form of the snake’s head!

I am impressed with the ingenuity of this jug’s potter, whoever the person was. By the addition of a clay snake, he created a handle and a pouring spout, as well as significant decorative appeal to an otherwise simple form. I, for one, am sold on the piece! We’ll see what the bidders think on January 30th.