Rare One-and-a-Half-Gallon Stoneware Pitcher with Cobalt Floral Decoration, attributed to William C. or William S. Coffman, Elkton, VA at Henry H. Miller's Elk Run Pottery, Elkton, VA, circa 1865, ovoid pitcher with triple-beaded rim molding, the front and left side decorated with two sweeping floral designs featuring a three-petaled, open-centered blossom emanating from a leafy stem. Collar decorated with four brushed wavy lines. Cobalt highlights to handle terminals. Pieces produced for the Millers' Elk Run Pottery by the Coffman family are considered scarce, this lot being the first cobalt-decorated stoneware pitcher from this site that we have seen. Its decoration can be linked to, among other pieces, an important double-handled jug bearing an incised inscription for the pottery's owner, "H.H. Miller / Nov. 12 1867", illustrated in Comstock's The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region and Evans / Suter's "'A Great Deal of Stone and Earthen Ware': The Rockingham County, Virginia School of Folk Pottery". Very nice condition. Rim of pitcher is out-of-round on reverse side. A 1 1/2" firing crack on interior of rim, visible as a faint line on exterior of rim. Minor base nicks. Nicks to spout and rim. An approximately 5/8" in-the-firing contact mark / surface chip to reverse.
