Anna Pottery Liberty Monument

At Crocker Farm we are truly privileged to regularly present newly discovered objects to the modern world. It's one of the greatest parts of what we do, and no object typifies this more than Anna Pottery's staggeringly important Liberty Monument, sold in our Summer 2021 auction.

The Anna Pottery Liberty Monument, Kirkpatrick Brothers, Anna, Illinois, 1873.

This object could be considered the greatest commentary, from a White perspective, by a period American potter on the state of race relations and the cruel injustice regularly exacted on African Americans. Other important objects in this vein come to mind: the Brooklyn Museum's "Freedom to the Slave" punch bowl, made in Manhattan in 1792; a Philadelphia anti-slavery charger inscribed "Remember Him that is in Bonds." But nothing out there that I have seen captures so rawly and unabashedly the horrors to which Blacks were subjected under Reconstruction or otherwise. For a detailed write-up about this moving object, you can visit the original lot page here.

Detail of the Kirkpatrick Brothers' depiction of the Colfax Massacre.

The Kirkpatricks took as their subject matter a truly shocking national news story, that of the Colfax Massacre, "today viewed as the largest lynching in American history." (As quoted in the auction catalog.) "On Easter Sunday in 1873, as many as 153 African-Americans were slain at the Grant Parish Courthouse, located in Colfax, Louisiana. Republican black militiamen had occupied the courthouse as a result of a hotly-contested Louisiana gubernatorial election, one marked by fraud on the part of white supremacist Democrats. Despite surrendering, the militiamen were killed at the courthouse at the hand of a white Democrat mob, which included ex-Confederates armed with rifles and a small cannon. The Kirkpatricks' sculpture depicts this tragedy in vivid detail ... ."

A sign beneath the Colfax Massacre sarcastically reads, "Our Protection Under the Civil Right Bill."

We first laid eyes on the Liberty Monument when we received an email from a prospective consignor who had discovered it in the western United States; he believed that it was not an example of stoneware, but rather a piece of figural "sewer tile" made by one of the numerous American companies primarily producing drainage pipe out of a brown-glazed pottery. We immediately recognized it as the work of two of our favorite American craftsmen: Wallace and Cornwall Kirkpatrick of Anna, Illinois. In time, we came to realize that it was their masterpiece. Luke flew out to pick it up from the consignor and we all began to wonder if America would receive this object the same way we had. We were hopeful that would be the case. Here's a video we put together after we received the monument, and it describes it in detail:

The Liberty Monument formed the centerpiece of our advertising leading up to our Summer 2021 sale along with the David Drake verse jar we also sold in that auction. Through a series of aggressive bids by two parties representing the highest levels of the American ceramics market, when all was said and done this masterpiece realized what would have been a new world auction record for American stoneware: $600,000. (I say "would have been" because mere minutes before, David Drake's verse jar had sold for $1.56 million. Previous to these extraordinary prices, the world record for American stoneware was $483,000 for the Baltimore eagle cooler sold in our Fall 2015 auction.) The successful high bidder was Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

The Anna Pottery Liberty Monument as it currently resides at Winterthur.

Winterthur's purchase of the Anna Liberty Monument was extremely meaningful to me and my entire family. This extraordinary institution, founded by the visionary Henry Francis du Pont in the 1950's, is looked to as a gold standard in public decorative arts institutions. The house there teeming with extremely important objects--ones that in many cases are "household names" in Americana circles--already boasts numerous famous examples of American ceramics: a John Bell lion, a large number of high-level sgraffito objects, a John Remmey handled flask with mermaid decoration, a fantastic Greensboro spaniel, too many others to name. Because of this, and because of its relatively close proximity to Baltimore County, Winterthur has always been a special place for us. It was at Winterthur, for instance, that I first (wittingly) saw a piece of David Drake's work in person, back in the year 2000, when the museum presented the traveling exhibition, "I made this jar..." The Life and Works of the Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave. I walked into a room that almost overwhelmed me with pot after giant pot thrown by a man now nationally recognized as the king of Southern ceramics.

Winterthur's acquisition of the Liberty Monument is absolutely in keeping with the same forward-thinking mindset that helped bring much-needed attention to David Drake almost a quarter century ago. If you visit the museum, as you should, and stroll into the galleries, you will be greeted by a large, prominent display that guards the way to the rest of the exhibits. There you can view the monument up close, and consider some of the questions you'll be left to ponder.

You can read a brief piece on Winterthur's website about the Liberty Monument here.