Extremely Rare Three-Gallon Stoneware "ICE WATER" Cooler with Applied Decoration, Stamped "SIPE & SON / WILLIAMSPORT, Pa.", circa 1880, wheel-thrown, keg-form cooler with tooled banding and circular bung hole, the surface embellished with tooled banding and crosshatched incising. Front shoulder of cooler decorated with applied rustic decoration, composed of textured clay and extruded clay cylinder, resembling a sawed limb, the applied clay mass fitted with individually molded and applied letters, creating the word "ICE WATER". Front base and side shoulders of cooler decorated with additional rustic clay motifs. Cobalt highlights to the words, "ICE WATER", applied sawed limbs, and maker's mark. This imaginatively-decorated cooler is the first of its kind from Central Pennsylvania that we have seen. Minor nicks to applied decorations. One small sawed limb missing at applied decoration to left of bunghole presumably in the firing. A large in-the-firing Y-shaped surface crack from rim on interior only, visible on the exterior as a 1" hairline. A few minor rim chips.
