Extremely Rare and Important Two-Gallon Stoneware Jar with Cobalt Pomegranate Decoration, attributed to the Kemple Pottery, Ringoes, NJ, circa 1750, rotund, squat-shaped jar with semi-squared rim and heavy tooling to upper shoulder. Vertical open handles applied at the shoulder, with pronounced medial ridge and circular impressions at the terminals. Front and back decorated with an artistic cobalt design of large pomegranates extending from a curving, leafy stem with curled tip. Cobalt highlights to base of rim, handle terminals, and surrounding a tooled band at base. Brushed cobalt number "2" on each side. This jar is one of the earliest examples of American stoneware known, and is also one of a very few intact Kemple jars bearing this decoration known, surviving in the strongest condition of any of this known group of pots. It is furthermore the only colonial American jar we have seen potted with this robust, highly-ovoid body style, and may predate the few other Kemple pieces known, relating more closely to the Germanic origins of American stoneware. See The Eighteenth-Century New Jersey Stoneware Potteries of Captain James Morgan and the Kemple Family by Golderg, Warwick, and Warwick in Ceramics in America 2008. Provenance: Recently discovered in the Midwestern United States. Excellent condition with chipping to edge of one handle, two minor nicks to opposite handle, and some minor base chips. H 11 1/8".
