Sometimes auction house cataloging can be hyperbolic but in the case of this Eighteenth Century stoneware jar by Black potter Thomas W. Commeraw, “exceedingly rare” and “important” were warranted as it sold to an unidentified institution for $120,000, now the new world record price for the potter. Mark Zipp said the result is a direct correlation to his brother, Brandt’s, recent scholarship on the maker, who is now recognized as the first African American pottery owner ($20/30,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring; Photos Courtesy Crocker Farm
SPARKS, MD. — All but five lots offered by Crocker Farm were sold successfully in the firm’s Summer 2023 auction that closed on August 5. That gave the 615-lot auction a 99 percent sell-through rate and an aggregate total of $1,418,250.
“It was a great sale, we’re all very pleased,” said Mark Zipp.
As Antiques and The Arts Weekly has observed in previous Crocker Farm auction reviews, the house “front loads” its sales, which means they organize their sales with those lots having the best chance of bringing the highest prices towards the front. This allows bidders who aren’t successful in those lots the opportunity to spend their money on other lots in the sale. So, it was perhaps no surprise that the top prices were among those towards the front of the sale, but what was perhaps surprising is that the top price of the day — $120,000 — was shared by the first two lots in the sale. Setting the high bar first, and exceeding its estimate, was a 20-gallon stoneware keg decorated with an elaborate cobalt landscape, that had been made by the West Troy Pottery, circa 1875. Mark Zipp said the price was the second highest price ever realized for a piece by the pottery and described it as a “masterwork.” Previously in the collection of New York state stoneware collector Wilson Berry, the keg had previously been auctioned at Skinner Auction in October of 1984, when it sold for $13,200 (including premium). Zipp confirmed the buyer was Adam Weitsman, who routinely donates his purchases to the New York State Museum.
The current second-highest price achieved for a piece of West Troy (N.Y.) Pottery is now $120,000, realized for this 20-gallon stoneware keg with sponged and slip-decorated cobalt landscape scene. It is going to the New York State Museum ($50/100,000).
Mark Zipp’s brother Brandt’s scholarship is the subject of an ongoing exhibition, “Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw,” which opened at the New-York Historical Society in January 2023 and is currently at the Fenimore Art Museum. As the market often follows scholarship, it is not too surprising that a 2-gallon stoneware jar with incised floral decoration and stamped “Coerlears Hook” and “N. York” was the other lot to achieve $120,000. Described in the catalog simply as “the finest conditioned early period Coerlears Hook vessel we have ever seen offered for sale,” the piece was featured on the cover of Brandt’s book, Commeraw’s Stoneware: The Life and Work of the First African-American Pottery Owner (2022). Not only is the result a new world record for a piece by Commeraw but it was also acquired by an institution.
An institution was the underbidder for a stoneware jug with incised snakes, a man’s bust and a bird decoration that had been made in Muskingum County, Ohio, in the mid to late Nineteenth Century, possibly inspired by the African Colonization Movement, which sought to resettle North American Blacks in West Africa. Mark noted this was “a mysterious piece; we still don’t know what it means…but is a very powerful example of folk art.” Consigned to Crocker Farm from a “major collection in the Midwest,” he said it was purchased for $60,000 by ceramics scholar Rob Hunter, who confirmed he purchased it for stock.
Hunter also purchased three other lots, including for $32,400 and for a client, a newly discovered circa 1820 stoneware pitcher from the Georgetown, DC, pottery of Samuel Holmes that was cataloged as “a Rosetta Stone of sorts, this pitcher provides a window into the first generation of stoneware production in today’s District of Columbia, this being the earliest documented example produced there.”
Rob Hunter, bidding for a client, paid $32,400 for this newly-discovered and circa 1820 one-gallon stoneware pitcher that survives as the only documented piece by Georgetown, DC, potter Samuel Holmes ($10/15,000).
Another new discovery that crossed Crocker Farm’s block was a circa 1850 4-gallon double-handled stoneware jug made by Collin Rhodes in the Edgefield District of South Carolina for $36,000. Decorated with an olive-green alkaline glaze with a looping flourish below its inscription, it was additionally in a remarkable state of preservation and cataloged as “among the finest examples of this pottery’s works to come to auction in years.” Mark confirmed it was purchased by a Southern buyer.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house.
Crocker Farm’s next sale will take place at the end of October-beginning of November. For information, 410-472-2016 or www.crockerfarm.com.
