Very Rare 3 Gal. Connellsville, PA Stoneware Jar with Coggled Design and Cobalt Floral Decoration

Fall 2020 Stoneware Auction

Lot #: 227

Price Realized: $2,760.00

($2,300 hammer, plus 20% buyer's premium)

PLEASE NOTE: This result is 4 years old, and the American ceramics market frequently changes. Additionally, small nuances of color, condition, shape, etc. can mean huge differences in price. If you're interested in having us sell a similar item for you, please contact us here.

Fall 2020 Auction Catalog

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Very Rare Three-Gallon Stoneware Jar with Coggled Decoration and Elaborate Cobalt Floral Decoration, attributed to John Greenland, Connellsville, PA, circa 1860, ovoid jar with flattened rim and molded lug handles with raised terminals, decorated with a large brushed design of Germanic tulips emanating from a leafy stem. Handles brushed over with cobalt. Shoulder decorated with a coggled fence motif featuring arched fencing and posts with circular finials. Reverse impressed with distinctive John Greenland three-gallon capacity mark. The capacity mark matches that seen on Greenland's masterpiece, the signed three-gallon jar with cobalt marching soldier decoration, currently on display at the William C. and Susan S. Mariner Gallery at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This jar reveals the close link between Connellsville/Uniontown, Pennsylvania stoneware and that produced by the Thompson family in Morgantown, West Virginia. Closely-related coggled designs featuring arched fences with posts can be seen in the Thompsons' work, as well as similar molded handles. As discussed in Horvath, Duez, and Heindl, "The Stoneware Years of the Thompson Potters of Morgantown, West Virginia, 1854-1890," Ceramics in America 2011, the Greenland and Thompson families are connected by marriage. John Greenland's uncle was John Thompson, patriarch of Morgantown's Thompson family of potters. Greenland's brother, Norval, would go on to pot in Uniontown and produce people-decorated stoneware in the Morgantown style. John Greenland stoneware is particularly rare and this jar is only the second piece of stoneware attributed to his hand that we have offered. This jar is the only coggled example of Greenland's work that we have seen. Provenance: A fresh-to-the-market example, which recently surfaced in Western Pennsylvania. Crack from rim on side of jar, extending through right handle and curving partway onto front near base. Chips to left handle. A 1" in-the-firing lime ping to right handle. A 5 1/4" hairline on underside, continuing 5 1/4" up reverse. A 7/8" in-the-firing ping to underside, filled with plaster and not visible on interior. A few relatively minor base chips. A 2" salt drip to reverse.