A Rare Decorated Late-18th or Early-19th Century Red Earthenware Jug from Southeastern Massachusetts

I consider this late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth-century red earthenware jug to be one of the rarest styles of decoration to find from the southeastern Massachusetts potter's industry. It may even be one of the rarest styles of decoration to find anywhere in New England in the eighteenth or nineteenth-centuries. To my knowledge, this is the only known object from southeastern Massachusetts, which exhibits this exact type of decoration today.

This jug was likely made by a member from the Boyce or Shove families in either Berkley or Somerset, Massachusetts around the turn of the nineteenth-century, circa 1780-1820. The exterior and interior glazes are spectacular, where the potter applied a clear lead glaze, manganese, a green copper glaze and yellow slip-decoration. The potter also carefully applied bands of straight and wavy incised lines, in the areas, where the slip and manganese were applied on the top section of the jug.

This jug also retains an intriguing recent history, where it was discovered a few summers ago at Todd's Farm Flea Market in Rowley, Massachusetts. Presumably, this jug must have also recently been found in a local home during a house clean-out (or such) for it to appear in such a context at a New England flea market.

I had heard stories about this jug for about one-year after it was discovered - it was reportedly found in the dark on a Sunday morning in July around 4:00 am in Rowley. A picker/collector from Maine found it, and it was one of the few objects that he decided to keep that summer. However, I was eventually lucky enough to acquire this jug directly from him; although, he made me promise that I would write about the jug since he also realized the importance of its decoration.

Note: Here is a link to a related smaller jug that sold last year in Lewis Scranton's Collection at Skinner, Inc. in Killingworth, Connecticut.

Late-18th or Early-19th Century Red Earthenware Jug
Discovered a Few Years Ago at Todd's Farm Flea Market in Rowley, Mass.
Attributed to Southeastern Massachusetts
Likely Made in Either Berkley, Mass. or Somerset, Mass.
Circa 1780-1820
Stands 8 3/4" Tall

Another View of the Remarkable Glaze

Another View of the Remarkable Glaze

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