I posted this bisque fired Southern stoneware face jug with a brown slip interior glaze to my Instagram account last week, which I just acquired from Arkansas antiques dealer Zach Miller. Although, it was previously owned by some folk art collectors, as well as Connecticut antiques dealer Alan Katz.
There has been some speculation where this jug was manufactured probably during the circa 1880-1930 period, but it seems to me to be more in keeping with some jugs that I have seen produced in Georgia in the early 1900s, perhaps by the Brown family in Atlanta or a potter working in north Georgia. But I would certainly like to hear any ideas of where it may have been made and by who if anyone reading this knows anything about it
However, for instance, if this jug were produced by the Browns in Atlanta, then this would have been done so before they established their long-standing pottery business in Arden, North Carolina, which is where the family is especially known for their face jug production today, including those produced in the 1920s and 1930s.
But in the case of this piece, I believe the teeth are made out of some type of white chinaware sherds, a style of domestic and imported ceramic that became popular in America as early as the mid-1800s or so. The facial hair is unusual with the only other bisque fired stoneware face jug that I can find with this exact type of hair having been published in George Myers' book, Early American Face Jugs. That jug was attributed to Georgia, and it was also recently exhibited with the rest of Myers' face jug collection at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York and the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia.
Interestingly, this is actually the second face jug that I have acquired through the years that was previously owned by Alan Katz; the other jug is a completely different form, made out of red earthenware and most likely manufactured somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic region in the early to mid 1800s.
Note Update Nov. 23: "After posting this face jug to my Instagram account last week and writing about it today, I was told some good information from Steve Lott, a collector in North Carolina about its history after he read the article I posted to this website. It turns out that aside from the history of ownership that I already noted, this jug was originally discovered in the Atlanta area by local artist Randy Sewell some years back (probably in the 1980s) before it was then sold as part of the Randy and Lee Sewell Collection at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina. It was sold alongside a number of important nineteenth and twentieth century face jugs that the Sewells owned from Georgia and Edgefield, South Carolina, among others.
Nonetheless, considering the location where it was originally found "in the wild" and it's manufacture, the jug is thought to have been produced around 1900 by a Brown family member at the West Faces Perry site outside of Atlanta."
A Recently Acquired Circa 1880-1930 Southern Stoneware Face Jug
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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