Exceedingly Rare Two-Gallon Stoneware Jug with Cobalt Floral and Watchspring Motifs, attributed to the Kemple Pottery, Ringoes, NJ, circa 1746-1795, ovoid jug with tooled shoulder, ribbed handle, and tall spout culminating in a semi-rounded lip, the front decorated with a slip-trailed floral design featuring two clover-shaped blossoms emanating from a stem with scrolled watch spring base. Reverse with slip-trailed watch spring motif emanating from the lower handle termnal, the upper terminal with additional cobalt highlight. Kemple family products are considered some of the rarest and earliest American stoneware objects known, with only a small body of intact pieces surviving today. This example is the first Kemple jug we have ever offered. Literature: For a jar bearing similar three-petaled floral and watch spring motifs, see Goldberg, Warwick, and Warwick, "The Eighteenth-Century New Jersey Stoneware Potteries of Captain James Morgan and the Kemple Family, Ceramics in America 2008, fig. 5. Provenance: Crocker Farm, Inc., March 25, 2017, lot 298; Warren F. Hartmann Collection. A chip to edge of spout and two nicks to top of spout. A 2" curved crack to surface on front with chipping along crack line. Base chips. Small in-the-firing iron pings to surface. H 15".
