The museum's snake jug bears 12 finely articulated timber rattlesnakes and three men. The snakes slither out of the jug and sprawl in tangles across most of its surface.
Little is known of the reception of the Kirkpatricks' figural works in their own time. In the twentieth century, scholars saw the Kirkpatrick snake jugs as temperance warnings against the evils of drink. More recent interpreters, however, draw attention to the jug's grotesque, macabre, sexual, and scatological aspects, their humor, and their self-consciously extravagant style, and argue that they are an iconic debunking of Victorian values."
Over the past year, I have also written about what I consider to be the best example of figural Anna Pottery in existence today, owned by the New York Historical Society in Manhattan. According to the historical Society, "The Anna Pottery Company made a snake jug as a thank you gift for Thomas Nast, a famous political cartoonist of the 1860s and 1870s. Nast had used his cartoons to attack the massive misappropriation of public funds by Boss Tweed and his henchmen, who controlled the political machine known as Tammany Hall. Tweed is found on the jug with a bearded head with glasses, and most of the other heads are his associates. Also the behinds of all the Tammany Hall members are seen trying to climb into the pot of money and power. A lot of people knew about Tweed's corruption, but it was Nast's cartoons in Harper's Weekly that finally aroused the public, the newspapers and government officials to arrest Tweed and send him to prison. The pottery makers also added their hero Nast to the jug. He's the highest head on the jug, and not attached to a snake's body. Today political cartoonists still see Thomas Nast's cartoons as the gold standard for their profession. And this sculpture stands as a testament to the power of artistic expression."
Although, aside from those jugs, the Krannert Art Museum displayed a number of objects from the Kirkpatricks in 1986, which were also published in the exhibit catalog, The Kirkpatricks' Pottery at Anna, Illinois. In fact, some of these objects have since sold at auction, through such companies as Crocker Farm in Sparks, Maryland and Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates in Mount Crawford, Virginia; one of these objects, a presentation vase, now sits beside an Anna Pottery temperance jug inside the Americana Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.
Krannert Art Museum
19th Century Stoneware Snake Jug
Made at the Cornwall (1814-1890) and Wallace Kirkpatrick (1828-1896) Pottery in Anna, IL
See Article for More Information
Photo Courtesy: Krannert Art Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art
19th Century Stoneware Presentation Vase
Made at the Cornwall (1814-1890) and Wallace Kirkpatrick (1828-1896) Pottery in Anna, IL
Circa 1886
Acquired from Jeffrey S. Evans and Associates in 2017
See Article for More Information
Photo Courtesy: Metropolitan Museum of Art
19th Century Stoneware Snake Jug
Made at the Cornwall (1814-1890) and Wallace Kirkpatrick (1828-1896) Pottery in Anna, IL
Circa 1877
See Article for More Information
Photo Courtesy: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
No comments:
Post a Comment