Probably Paul Cushman (1767-1833), Albany, NY
Date:
1810-1820
Maker:
Probably Paul Cushman (1767-1833), Albany, NY
Dimensions:
18 1/2 H x 11 7/8 Dia. (at waist)
Materials:
Salt-glazed stoneware with incised decoration
Provenance:
Purchased from Warren F. Hartmann
Credit:
Albany Institute of History & Art Purchase, Rockwell Fund
Accession Number:
1998.42
Comments:
Although this stoneware container isn't marked with a Cushman pottery stamp, its decoration suggests that it was made at his factory. The backward-looking bird is a near duplicate of a known Cushman vessel, and the undulating lines incised around the jug's "shoulders" are similar. Paul Cushman was one of the founders of a regional stoneware industry that spanned the Upper Hudson Valley. When he moved to Albany around 1800, there were few local potters, but his pottery works became a long-lived and successful business that also initiated a century of tremendous growth and expansion in regional stoneware manufacturing.
