Rare and Fine Five-Gallon Alkaline-Glazed Stoneware Jar with "B" Stamp and Incised Punctates, Pottersville Pottery, Edgefield District, SC, possibly David Drake, circa 1820s, bulbous jar with angled lug handles and short, cylindrical collar with semi-rounded rim, the surface covered in a streaky, gray-green alkaline glaze. Impressed at shoulder with unusual sideways "B" stamp along with five punctates denoting five gallons. Nuances of this jar's construction suggest it may be an early product of enslaved potter, David Drake. A gracefully-potted example likely created during the first several years of production at Abner Landrum's Pottersville pottery. Literature: A jar with seven B stamps, dated "July the 30th 1822," and a jug with four B stamps are illustrated in Hunter and Heubach, "Visualizing the Stoneware Potteries of William Rogers of Yorktown and Abner Landrum of Pottersville," Ceramics in America 2019, fig. 16. Provenance: From a fifty-year SC collection. Jar survives in rarely-found, essentially as-made condition with a network of in-the-firing surface cracks to underside, not visible on interior, and a long, thin horizontal surface crack at base, not visible on interior. H 14".
