Two 19th Century Stoneware Ring Bottles with Similar Circular or Dotted Graduated Designs

This unmarked nineteenth century stoneware ring bottle from either the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region is a part of the good stoneware collection that I have been writing about, which is currently available at Antiques Associates At West Townsend in Massachusetts; the bottle is adorned with incised leafy trailing vines, as well as a series of impressed circles that form a triangle. This decoration has also been highlighted with a brown colored ochre. Among the locations of manufacturers that are known to have used ochre as a means of decoration were businesses in New York and New Jersey, among other places, whereas the use of a graduated series of decorative rows that form a triangle is also a style of decoration found in New York and New Jersey with both cobalt and incised designs.

One comparable object that I have seen with this type of circular or dotted decoration is a nineteenth century cobalt decorated stoneware ring flask that sold at Hyde Park Country Auctions in Poughkeepsie, New York in 2016 for $2,400 plus the buyer's premium: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/43179335_heavily-decorated-ring-flask-with-cobalt-blue-fish.

19th Century Stoneware Ring Bottle Possibly Made in New York or New Jersey

Measures 7" in Diameter

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Photo Courtesy: Hyde Park Country Auctions

Furthermore, this is a form that has previously been cited in a twentieth century publication unrelated to pottery or the history of American decorative arts; Cornelius Weygandt (1871-1957), an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an author, wrote the book November Rowen: A Late Harvest From the Hills of New Hampshire in 1941; on page 272, he states, "I had heard much talk, from my first summering in Sandwich (New Hampshire), of the encouragement that rum gave to the harvesters in old time, but hard cider had driven out rum by the time I came along to observe men and manners in our hill town. I heard of the rum ring, a hollow tube of redware pottery slung over the shoulder by a strap, and I finally secured one down by Boscowan (New Hampshire)."

This is also a form that is illustrated on the cover of the 2023 issue of Ceramics in America, and the subject of an article written by Rob Hunter, titled, Southern Hoodoo and the Dr. Peter Davis Ring Bottle: https://chipstone.org/article.php/897/Ceramics-in-America-2023/Southern-Hoodoo-and-the-Dr.-Peter-Davis-Ring-Bottle.

Here is a link to the ring bottle: https://www.aaawt.com/antique/stoneware-ring-bottle-probably-made-in-the-northeast-or-mid-atlantic-regions/.

For more information about this object - contact A.A.A.W.T.: https://www.aaawt.com/about/.

19th Century Stoneware Ring Bottle Possibly Made in New York or New Jersey

Otherwise Elsewhere in the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic Region

Shares Similarities to Some Objects Made in New York City

Incised with Leafy Trailing Vines

Also Decorated with a Series of Impressed Circles that Form a Triangle

These Decorations are Highlighted with a Brown Ochre

Measures 11 1/2" from Top to Bottom

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Photo Courtesy: A.A.A.W.T.

This Photo Shows the Size of the Ring Bottle

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