Important and Possibly Unique Three-Gallon Stoneware Jar with Cobalt Tree Decoration, Stamped "R. BUTT / Monty Co. Md.," Richard Butt Pottery, Montgomery County, MD, circa 1826, ovoid jar with footed base, applied tab handles, and squared rim, brush-decorated on the front with a stylized design of a tree design with three branches bearing leaves. Reverse decorated with a large flower and stem extending from a group of leaves. Cobalt highlights to handle terminals. Impressed at shoulder with Richard Butt, Montgomery County, MD maker's mark, the only known piece bearing this stamp. While for many years Butt was known to collectors as a Washington, D.C. pottery owner and keeper of the Washington Asylum (effectively the poor house), it was the surfacing of this jar in 2007 that surprisingly established him also as the proprietor of a Maryland stoneware shop--remarkably, one of the few documented ones located outside of Baltimore. The story of Butt and his acquistion of what was Whitson Canby's redware shop in Mechanicsville (now Olney), Montgomery County, Maryland, is recounted in Brandt Zipp's article, "Washington D.C. Stoneware," in the Autumn / Winter 2010 issue of Antiques and Fine Art. A February 1826 newspaper item announced that Butt had taken over that pottery, often referred to as the "Fair-Hill Manufactory" after a nearby manor home of the same name. Under his ownership, it expanded out of low-fired earthenware into high-fired stoneware. While Butt maintained ownership of his Olney shop until at least 1831, by that time he appears to have already established his much more well-known Washington, D.C. pottery at the southwest corner of Eighth and I Streets NW; a number of examples from this manufactory are known bearing versions of the stamp "R. BUTT / W City, D.C." A recently discovered 1829 Washington newspaper item references "Mr. Richard Butt, Stone Potter, on 7th Street," the earliest known date thus far for his potential ownership of that shop. (Washington United States' Telegraph, April 3, 1829.) The existence of this Montgomery County, MD, jar (as well as the reference to him as a "Stone Potter") hint that Butt may have been a potter himself--an idea generally discounted in the past, as collectors and researchers have tended to view him as a business owner or merchant as opposed to an actual potter. Of particular note is this vessel's wonderful tree design, which differs markedly from motifs found on Butt's D.C. ware. An exceedingly rare example of extreme importance to the study of both District of Columbia and Maryland stoneware. Literature: Illustrated and discussed in A. Brandt Zipp, "Washington D.C. Stoneware," Antiques and Fine Art Magazine, Autumn / Winter 2010. Provenance: Crocker Farm, Inc., March 19, 2007, lot 378. Base chips and handle chip. H 12 1/4".
