Exceedingly Rare and Important Stoneware Jar with Incised Floral Decoration, Stamped "C. CROLIUS / BAYARD STREET / NEW-YORK," Manhattan, NY origin, circa 1800, narrow-bodied, cylindrical jar with footed base, tooled shoulder, and slightly-flared rim, the front featuring the large impressed maker's mark of Clarkson Crolius, Sr.'s Bayard Street pottery, brushed over in cobalt slip. Reverse with incised floral design featuring a bud flanked by scalloped leaves, highlighted in cobalt slip. This finely colored and decorated jar features the rarest early Manhattan maker's mark, used by Clarkson Crolius, Sr. at a second shop location on Bayard Street, separate from his more well-known Manhattan Wells location at Pot Baker's Hill. As discussed in Zipp's Commeraw's Stoneware, pp. 119, 274n5, while the first reference to Clarkson Crolius owning a Bayard Street shop is the 1814 edition of Longworth's city directory, stylistically the few surviving "C. CROLIUS / BAYARD STREET" objects clearly belong to an earlier, probably late 18th century, context. These pieces all fall in line beside what was apparently Crolius's earliest "Manhattan-Wells" mark, and it is possible that Clarkson Crolius was superintending the family's Bayard Street pottery (a pottery first referenced in an 1803 city directory) prior to taking over his own father's shop at the more well-known Manhattan Wells site. This represents an exceedingly rare opportunity to acquire a maker's mark almost never seen on the open market. Small base chips, two of which are glazed over. A thin, inverted T-shaped crack from rim. A small chip to exterior of rim and a small chip to interior of rim. Some typical, small in-the-firing iron pings to surface. H 13 7/8".
