Rare Alkaline-Glazed Stoneware Face Jug, attributed to the Miles Mill Pottery, Edgefield District, SC, circa 1867-1885, small-sized, semi-ovoid jug with broad spout culminating in a thin, semi-rounded molding, decorated with a hand-modeled and applied clay face including pierced kaolin eyes set within oval lids, thin eyebrows, C-scroll ears, a Roman nose with pinched nostrils, and an open mouth with applied kaolin and impressed teeth. Surface covered in a mottled olive-green to brown alkaline glaze with high gloss. This face jug carries an outstanding provenance, distinguished as one of a select group owned by early collector, Helen Eve. Eve was the daughter of Colonel Thomas Davies, owner of the Palmetto Fire Brick Works of Bath, SC, an Edgefield District pottery famously mentioned in Edwin Atlee Barber's The Pottery and Porcelain of the United States as a producer of face jugs. Information in this book regarding Barber's correspondence with Davies himself has served as our earliest documentation and understanding of Edgefield face vessels. The following excerpt from Christie's The John Gordon Collection of Folk Americana catalog describes a direct link between Barber and Gordon that likely influenced his interest in Southern material generally and Edgefield face vessels specifically: "The Gordon Collection can be viewed in its entirety as an anthology of American East Coast earthenware production from the 18th century to the present, or within sub-categories such as region (New England, Mid-Atlantic or Southern), culture (Moravian or non-Moravian), or form (hollow ware, animal figures or face vessels). This inclusive sense of American and its art that has been the mission of The Gordon Collection is in many ways as much the product of the collector as its teachers. The influence of scholars such as Edwin Atlee Barber, whose ideas Gordon absorbed while working at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, to fellow dealers Hattie Brunner and Joe Kindig, Sr., to fellow collectors Alfred Barnes and Violette de Mazia, resulted in a vision of Americana that has both individual and overarching connotations." This lot's remarkable history of ownership places it among the most well-documented face jugs known from Miles Mill, perhaps the most recognizable producer of this form in Edgefield. Provenance: Acquired by William Raiford Eve, great-grandson on Colonel Thomas Davies, from an African-American community between Aiken and Langley, SC prior to World War II; purchased by John Gordon from Eve's mother, Helen Eve, in 1969; Christie's, The John Gordon Collection of Folk Americana, January 15 - 19, 1999, lot 1182; includes Christie's auction tag and sticker on underside. Shallow chipping to edge of nose. A minor chip to interior of spout. An in-the-making, glazed-over indentation to one ear. H 5".
