A cobalt slip-decorated stoneware butter churn achieved a record price for Kentucky pottery at auction, selling for $55,200 (inclusive of 15 percent buyer’s premium) at Case Antiques Inc, Auctions & Appraisals on October 16.

The lug-handled churn, labeled “Kentucky 1836” in cobalt script, is the earliest known marked piece of Kentucky pottery. It was decorated with a cobalt flower sprig and ornamental cross-hatch incised square containing the numeral 8 (to denote its capacity in gallons). Its neck, just below the flared rim, was stamped “I Thomas” for Isaac Thomas, a potter working in around Maysville and Lexington from approximately 1834 to 1876.

The buyer was the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.

Case also set a new auction record for Tennessee potter Christopher Alexander Haun (1821‱861), selling a slip and copper oxide decorated redware jar stamped “C.A. Haun” for $36,800 to a private collector. A red-glazed jar by San Ildefonso Pueblo potter Anthony Edward Tony Da, decorated with hummingbirds and inset with turquoise stones, measuring just 6½ inches tall, soared to $35,650, also a record auction price for that Southwestern potter. The jar was purchased by a private collector.

A full report on this auction will appear in a future issue of Antiques and The Arts Weekly.