America's Premier Auction of Stoneware & Redware Pottery ... Now Featuring Antiques & Decorative Arts

Selection of 20th Century Southern Folk Pottery, including Lanier Meaders.

Selection of 19th Century American Redware.

Colonial Stoneware Masterpiece. Important Vertical-Handled Stoneware Jar with Incised Checkerboard-Patterned Design of a Sunflower Extending from an Open-Handled Urn, Manhattan or New Jersey origin, second or third quarter 18th century. H 14 1/2".

This significant recent discovery is one of the finest and earliest examples of intact colonial American stoneware known. The distinctive checkerboard design relates to imported Westerwald stoneware produced during the period, as well as earlier. This use of alternating cobalt-decorated and undecorated incising can also be noted on sherds excavated at the Kemple Pottery of Ringoes, NJ, the Morgan Pottery of Cheesequake, NJ, as well as at the Remmey and Crolius potteries of Manhattan, during the mid 18th century. These sherds are pictured in Goldberg, Warwick, and Warwick, "The 18th-Century New Jersey Stoneware Potteries of Captain James Morgan and the Kemple Family" and Janowitz, "New York City Stoneware from the African Burial Ground," Ceramics in America 2008.

The front of the jar also includes an incised watchspring-like flourish, brush-decorated cobalt heart and circular designs, as well as the initials "I S" below the urn, and the initials "ƗPR" to its left. Whether these initials refer to members of the States or Remmey families of potters, both active in Manhattan, is speculation at this point. However, this may be the earliest example by the prolific New York City stoneware potters known. It was only after the relatively recent revelation of the stoneware sherds from New York's African Burial Ground that we now have any good understanding of the wares the Croliuses and Remmeys were making in lower Manhattan before the Revolution, and it was these sorts of pieces--previously solely attributable to New Jersey.

The very unusual crossed "I" before "PR" appears on the well-known "Elizabeth States" teapot pictured in Goldberg, Warwick, and Warwick, as does the incised looping design on the right side of the reverse of this jar. States was a close associate of the Croliuses and Remmeys for a few years during the 1740's, before moving on to Cheesequake, NJ, and further destinations in his career. Whether this directly links the jar to States or merely reinforces its attribution to some of the earliest of America's stoneware potteries, also remains to be seen.

The reverse features an abstract incised labyrinthine design accented with daisies, possibly decorated by a child, along with a simply-contrived Indian's bust below.

Provenance: Recently found in New York State.

Cowden & Wilcox Masterpiece. Exceedingly Rare One-and-a-Half-Gallon Stoneware Batter Pail with Cobalt Decoration of Four Birds Perched on Leaves, Stamped "COWDEN & WILCOX / HARRISBURG, PA," circa 1865. One of the finest examples of Harrisburg stoneware be offered in recent years.

Two-Gallon Stoneware Jar with Cobalt Man-in-the-Moon Decoration, Stamped "COWDEN & WILCOX / HARRISBURG, PA," circa 1865.