Extremely Rare and Important Salt-Glazed and Painted Stoneware Presentation Face Harvest Jug, Inscribed "J.W. Berry" and "Made By Wm. Decker / July 9th 1892," William Decker at the Decker Pottery, Washington County, TN, 1892, ovoid form with footed base and applied tubular spouts on the front and reverse, decorated with a hand-modeled and applied clay face including eyes and eyebrows with incised details, curved ears with piercings, a Roman nose with carved nostrils, and a mouth with bared teeth. Prolific application of extruded clay "coleslaw" forms lambchop sideburns, a mustache, beard, and one of the eyebrows. A thin, curving flange on the top of the vessel, created during the throwing process serves as a hat. Original piercings with twisted wire attachments extend through the left and right sides of the hat, allowing a bail handle to be added. Reverse of jug incised with the name, "J.W. Berry," the presumed owner of the jug, and the underside incised with the signature, "Made By Wm. Decker / July 9th 1892." (J. W. Berry must be the John W. Berry who is listed as a Washington County photographer in the 1900 federal census. An article written for a Northeast Tennessee genealogy society about May Day, Tennessee—not far from the Decker Pottery—notes that "John W. Berry had a store and was the community photographer. He made photographs of family gatherings, 'outings,' bridges and other structures in the area.") Surface covered in a salt glaze over brown slip with likely-original pumpkin-colored paint to cheeks and hat. One of a small number of face vessels known from the Decker Pottery, this highly sculptural work was made by perhaps the most accomplished member of the family. The following is an excerpt about William "Uncle Billy" Decker (1859-1909) from an essay on the Decker family, written by early Decker collector, Beverly Burbage, and posted on Wahler's website, www.southernpottery.com: "If time travel were possible and I could go back to the turn of the century for a visit with one — but only one — of the Deckers, the choice would probably be Uncle Billy. As the picture on the [following] page shows, he was physically deformed as the result of a fall from his highchair suffered in infancy. The rather cruel term used in his day was 'hunchback.' His appearance and short stature may well explain why he never married but he did not allow his misshapen body to prevent him from becoming an excellent potter. If some discerning young woman in the valley had looked beyond his pathetic deformity she would have seen a man with uncommon intellect, keen imagination and much ability. Not only was he a creative potter but a skilled horticulturist [known for grafting fruit trees], a competent cobbler and a good businessman as well. He also practiced medicine though he had no formal training and, on occasion, filled in for his brother Charles as a veterinarian. The Tennessee State Gazeteer for 1891 lists him as Postmaster for the Chucky Valley post office which was near the pottery. While his other skills added to his earnings and provided a change from the routine of pottery making, it was his work at the potter’s wheel which produced the pieces which cause him to be remembered. The novel and varied creations which have survived not only attest to his imagination and skill but show clearly that pottery was his chief means of self-expression. His pride in his craft led him to sign and date numerous pieces and it is not surprising that more examples have been found with his signature than there are by either his father or his older brother, Charles Jr." This imaginative face vessel draws from the influence of the Remmey family on Decker's father, Charles Decker, Sr. (1832-1914), while active in Philadelphia during the 1850s through 1871, and stands as one of the great surviving masterworks produced by this key Southern potting family. Literature: A related head-form stoneware gatepost ornament, signed "Made by W M Decker July 1887" is illustrated in Wahler's Tennessee Turned, p. 170, fig. 190, p. 174, pl. 24, p. 225, fig. 190, and p. 230, pl. 24. Loss to one ear and spout on reverse. A chip and wear to smaller spout. A few chips to brim of hat. A shallow 1 1/4" flake to nose. Two adjacent chips to base/underside, measuring a total of 3". H 8".
