Lot #: 46
Price Realized: $1,180.00
($1,000 hammer, plus 18% buyer's premium)
PLEASE NOTE: This result is 5 years old, and the American ceramics market frequently changes. Additionally, small nuances of color, condition, shape, etc. can mean huge differences in price. If you're interested in having us sell a similar item for you, please contact us here.
Rare Stoneware Temperance Jug with Profuse Applied Snake Decoration, Midwestern or Southern U.S. origin, circa 1885, ovoid jug with tall spout and semi-rounded mouth, the handle in the form of a hand-modeled and applied snake coiled around the jug's neck with tail curving in a sine wave pattern down the back of the jug. Body of snake heavily-incised with X-shaped and striped scaling. Eyes of snake formed from incised circles and mouth created from a long incised line. Body of jug profusely-decorated with twelve additional hand-modeled snakes with pierced eyes, creating a total of thirteen snakes, possibly symbolic of bad luck. Surface covered in a chocolate-brown Albany slip glaze. Most of one snake and areas of other snakes assume a pale-greenish color, possibly caused by their contact with trace amounts of vaporous salt during the firing, or possibly from a specific glaze treatment attempted with one or more of the snakes. More research is required to determine the maker of this exciting recent discovery, although its style is clearly based upon the work of masters, Wallace and Cornwall Kirkpatrick, of Anna, IL. Excellent overall condition, particularly for a form that is often replete with damage. A loss to a 1 1/2" curved section of one snake's body near tail, possibly in-the-firing. A chip to edge of one snake's spout. A chip to body of one snake. Two tight lines in one snake indicate a section of it may be reglued. H 8 1/2".
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