Very Rare Lidded Stoneware Preserve Jar with Incised and Brushed Cobalt Decoration, Stamped "PEACHES" and "C. CROLIUS / MANUFACTURER / MANHATTAN-WELLS / NEW-YORK", circa 1805, slender-shaped, cylindrical jar with tooled shoulder and flared rim, featuring the impressed and cobalt-highlighted word "PEACHES" above a stylized cobalt design resembling a bee or foliate motif, the reverse impressed with the cobalt-highlighted maker's mark of Clarkson Crolius, Sr., above a stylized incised design. Jar retains its original salt-glazed lid with button-form finial and recessed top, a rarity for pieces by this maker and from this time period in general. This jar is the largest salt-glazed preserve jar by Clarkson Crolius we have ever offered, and only the second bearing the "PEACHES" mark. In 2010, we offered an Albany-slip-glazed peaches jar that was only slightly larger. (It seems that, in many cases, the sizes of Crolius' specifically-labeled fruit jars were related to the sizes of the fruits they were made to hold.) This example includes appealing two-sided decoration, with brushwork on one side, and an incised motif in the Crolius-style on the reverse, partially lost by an in-the-firing stone or iron ping. One of the finest Crolius preserve jars we have handled. Rim and base chips to jar. Glazed-over stone or iron ping on reverse. Lid in excellent condition with traces of old paint. H 11".
