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Object Story: Jar
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This is a stoneware jar made somewhere in the New York area. The decorations make this jar unique. And although it has a bit of damage – a small hole, a few chips, and a repair at the rim – this jar is in very good condition for its age. It is about 270 years old! Pottery is fragile so not many jars have survived this long. Before metal cans and plastic containers existed, jars like this were used to preserve food or store liquid, and they came in a variety of shapes and sizes.
This jar is called “stoneware” because of the type of clay used and the way it is made. In America, potters began making stoneware in the early eighteenth century. Many of the potters working in America at this time were immigrants or learned their craft from German or English potters who brought their skills and training to America.
We know that jars with a wide mouth like this one were often used for pickling and other forms of food preservation. Although we don’t know what this jar was used for, the fact that it is stoneware gives us some evidence that it may have been used for food.
What additional clues could help us learn more about this object?
Jar
Jar
Unrecorded artist (American), Jar, probably New Jersey or New York, ca. 1750, stoneware. Jonathan and Karin Fielding Collection, L2015.41.18
Map of New York and New Jersey
In the eighteenth century, there were many stoneware potteries in New York and New Jersey because these locations had ample deposits of stoneware clay. Based on its style, some people think that this jar was made in one of the potteries in this area. There were three pottery businesses that were known to use this kind of cobalt-decorations: Kemple Pottery of Ringoes, NJ, the Morgan Pottery of Cheesequake, NJ, and the Remmey and Crolius potteries of Manhattan.
Initials
Although we don’t know the workshop or individual potter who made the jar, we do have a few intriguing clues. The initials “IS” were inscribed on one side and “IPR” on the other side. In the 1990s, archaeologists excavating the African American burial ground in lower Manhattan uncovered another pottery shard with the initials “IS” inscribed on it. The site was also used as a waste pit for local potteries so many of the pottery shards found there were made nearby. Do the initials “IS” belong to a potter who worked in a pottery in the area? Could the initials “IS” on the Huntington’s jar refer to the same potter who wrote “IS” on the shard found in the African American burial ground? Today, we do not know enough to establish any of these facts, but art historians, archaeologists, historians, and collectors are always looking for new information to help answer questions like these.
Flower in a Pot
Only a few pigments, cobalt and manganese, could withstand the high kiln temperatures required to make stoneware. The designs on the jar are a combination of markings incised into the clay while it was still soft, and additional designs were painted on with cobalt blue. Even though these stoneware jars were often utilitarian storage vessels, the workers who decorated them were given a certain amount of freedom to create designs that would be popular and recognizable. Geometric patterns and flowers were common subjects and show up on one side of this jar. This side features a vase or pot with a sunflower-like bloom inside it. The checkerboard motif on the vessel was a popular design used in certain types of German pottery.
The Mystery of the Makers
There’s another pattern on this jar that is a mystery. It looks like the potter was trying to draw something specific, but it is not as neat or clear as the vase and flower on the other side. Some people have described the design here as looking like “human intestines.” Another theory is that it represents an oyster on the half shell, which would make sense if this is a jar used to store oysters. Because one side has very fine decoration while the other side is more sketch-like, it is possible that two different people decorated this jar—one a more accomplished artist and the other possibly an apprentice or student learning how to decorate pottery. This may also account for the initials “IS” and “IPR” on opposite sides of the vessel. Although we don’t know exactly what the potters intended here or for whom this vessel was made, it seems likely that different people were involved in creating the designs on the two sides of this unique and interesting jar.
Even though there is a lot we do not know about the designs on the jar, it is clear that the people wanted to decorate it. Just as some people want designs on their dishes and storage containers today, people wanted decoration on the things they used in their homes in earlier times too.
Questions for Discussion
- How can we use primary source documents to help add layers of understanding to the investigation of the stoneware jar? After understanding all we can from the appearance of an object, we will have unanswered questions. We need to seek out the answers to some of these questions from other sources, possibly from other objects, or images, or text. What might those be?
- Discuss why it is important for archaeologists to look at primary source documents when considering an object’s history.
- What makes a functional object beautiful? Is it the way it looks: lots of detail or sparse detail, bold colors or muted colors? Is it the way that it is designed to function: a clever solution to a problem, a smooth and pleasing movement?
