Extremely Rare and Important Stoneware Pitcher with Incised Floral Decoration, attributed to Thomas Commeraw, Manhattan, NY, late 18th century, highly-ovoid pitcher with footed base and short, narrow collar with tooled rim, the front decorated with an incised and cobalt-highlighted floral design featuring a fan-shaped blossom and a series of leaves emanating from two stems drawn with a three-pronged stylus. Brushed cobalt highlights to handle terminals. Though unmarked, the decoration on this pitcher leads to a firm attribution to Thomas Commeraw, as this motif is found on a number of the potter's earliest works from Corlears Hook. The pitcher is one of a small body of pieces that we can confidently say Commeraw threw on the wheel and decorated himself. Among the best displays of Commeraw's potting ability to have surfaced, this vessel exhibits an expressive and curvaceous form uncommon to most Manhattan pitchers known. Of particular note is the remarkable color of the clay and cobalt used, characteristic of finer examples of 1790s stoneware produced by Commeraw at his Corlears Hook shop and at Pot Baker's Hill, where he learned the craft. Its early style and lack of maker's mark offers the possibility that it was made while he was still working with the Crolius family on Pot Baker's Hill, prior to the establishment of his independent shop in Corlears Hook a little over a mile away. Handle professionally restored by Thomas Restoration using a mold from a surviving Commeraw pitcher handle. A long, shallow in-the-firing flake to top of rim. A small rim chip on reverse with a 1 3/4" hairline descending from it. A 1 3/4" hairline to interior of rim, a very small part of which is visible on the exterior. Heavy chipping to base. H 10 3/4".
