Twelve-Gallon Churn

Date1866-1890

Artist/Maker Star Pottery (active 1866-1890)

MediumGray salt-glazed stoneware

DimensionsH: 22"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1969.900.1

Description12-gallon stoneware churn with blue painted and stenciled decoration depicting flowers and leaves above a stenciled eagle holding a banner with the words "Star Pottery" written in it. Albany slip interior.

A large grey stoneware crock with blue decoration (brushwork slip-bup, and stencil). Dark brown interior, or Albany slip. Floral design on top half of vessel is a typical Pennsylvania German motif. Two applied handles. An eagle with full spread wings holding a banner with the manufacturers name on it appears on the bottom half of the crock, below the floral design. The opposite side is undecorated.
-from previous curator worksheetLabel TextThe blue decoration on this butte churn combines freehand brushwork and a stencil. Stencils were frequently used to produce gallon capacity marks, but hand-painted designs continued to be the main decorative technique on American stoneware.
Exceptions to this approach, potters in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia factories moved from hand-painting cobalt blue designs on pots to stenciling ornate patterns shortly after 1850. The Hamilton family of Greensboro is well known for using a stenciled eagle. This piece was manufactured by the Star Pottery, one of several operated by Frank Hamilton and his brother-in-law, John Jones.
---Inspiration and Ingenuity: American Stoneware
Exhibition curated by Suzanne Findlen Hood
At the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum
February 2007Mark(s)"Star Pottery/12"