Extremely Rare and Important Alkaline-Glazed Stoneware Jar with Elaborate Iron-Slip Floral Decoration, Stamped "PHOENIX / FACTORY / ED : SC," Shaw's Creek, Edgefield District, SC, circa 1840, ovoid jar with rounded rim and flattened lug handles, brush-decorated in iron slip with a large flowering plant ascending the front, its splayed, multi-petaled blossom forming a border around the Phoenix Factory maker's mark. Reverse further decorated with a large, three-petaled flowering plant. Tannish-olive, alkaline-glazed ground. One of a small number of surviving pieces bearing a Phoenix Factory maker's mark, this work highlights a rising interest in producing decorative ware in Edgefield. Produced during the brief partnership of Collin Rhodes and Robert Mathis along Edgefield District's Shaw's Creek, this jar, and other pieces bearing this stamp, are known for the refined potting and Baltimore-inspired brushed slip floral motifs of its lead potter, Thomas Chandler. The rarity of this jar is evidenced by the fact that we have offered only one other marked Phoenix Factory piece since our inception in 2004, a related jar sold in our Spring 2024 auction, lot 2. Exhibited/Literature: Swag & Tassel: The Innovative Stoneware of Thomas Chandler, McKissick Museum, August 6, 2018 - July 20, 2019, p. 50, pl. 43 of exhibition catalog. Provenance: Purchased by the Wards at Charlton Hall Galleries, Columbia, SC, March 19, 2000. Very nice condition with a thin, 6" horizontal spider line extending from proper right side of jar partway onto front at midsection, as well as some short, minor surface lines to interior of jar, not visible on exterior. H 14".
