A Rare Incised Cobalt and Manganese-Decorated Salt-Glazed Stoneware Flask, Attributed to the Crolius or Remmey Pottery, Manhattan, New York

of ovoid flattened form, with ringed neck and strap handle, each side decorated with a cobalt blue heart enclosing a bird, the birds and stylized leaves filled with alternating manganese and cobalt blue. Crack around waist section which has been cemented. 

Archaeologist and scholar Meta F. Janowitz has examined photographs of this flask and feels that this may be an early example from the Cortselius/Crolius/Remmey group of potters who worked in lower Manhattan at Pott-Bakers Hill from circa 1720 to 1820.  Unmarked vessels attributable to the first two generations of these potters, who were trained in the Rhineland, are very scarce.  A copy of the Janowitz archeological report "Analysis of Local Stoneware and Kiln Furniture from the Grave Shafts" is available upon request from the department.

This flask will be included in a forthcoming book by Christopher Mailman entitled Great American Stoneware.