Exceedingly Rare and Important Stoneware Water Cooler with Incised Eagle, Bird, and Floral Motifs, attributed to Nicholas Van Wickle, Howell Township, Monmouth County, NJ, circa 1825, ovoid form with heavily-tooled shoulder, semi-rounded rim, ribbed lug handles, and octagonal bunghole with incised and chip-carved details, decorated with an incised and cobalt-highlighted design of a spread-winged Federal eagle with shield across its chest and scissor-shaped tail, clutching a large olive branch and arrows in its feet. A shield covering the bird's chest is detailed with a finely-executed checkerboard motif above a series of vertical stripes. Intricate incised feathering fills out the eagle's wings, a crest adorns its head, and its large incised eye features an impressed pupil in relief. Intentional omissions of cobalt at the bird's eye, within the striping of the shield, and checkerboard patterning at the top of the shield, create appealing contrasts within the design. The reverse shoulder is decorated with an incised and cobalt-highlighted design of a bird with incised feathering, impressed relief eye, and distinctive tail, perched on a leaf. An elaborate flowering plant design appears beside the bird, featuring unusual circular blossoms composed of numerous curving strokes. Brushed cobalt highlights to handle terminals and bunghole. Combining over-the-top, two-sided decoration and outstanding form, this work ranks among the best examples of stoneware known from the state of New Jersey. (Howell Township, the location of Nicholas Van Wickle's Monmouth County shop, is situated about ten miles west of Manasquan, and it is with that town name that this well-known pottery is commonly identified--based at least in part on the work of M. Lelyn Branin, author of The Early Makers of Handcrafted Earthenware and Stoneware in Central and Southern New Jersey. As Branin describes it on pg. 146 of his book, the pottery was situated "on the south bank of the Manasquan River, near Manasquan, ... in Howell Township, Monmouth County.") This cooler's wonderful checkerboard-patterned shield relates to crosshatched treatments found on imported stoneware of Westerwald, Germany--the tradition on which the majority of American stoneware was founded. Imbued with patriotic fervor, it may have been made to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence. A closely related example by Van Wickle resides in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan, New York. Very nice condition with a 1 1/2" rim chip on reverse, a minor chip to interior of bunghole, and in-the-firing surface fissures to underside, not visible on interior. H 15".
