Last week, we looked at an interesting Harrisburg, Pa., decorated stoneware batter pail that did well at Crocker Farms recent ceramics auction. This week I want to highlight a very early stoneware flask with incised and impressed decoration, attributed to the Crolius Family in Manhattan, N.Y. The rare survivior brought $72,000, selling to a Pennsylvania private collector. Its an important piece, we were happy with the price, and it shows how proper dating, attribution and cataloging is everything, noted Mark Zipp of Crocker Farm. Dating to the second or third quarter of the 18th century, wheel-thrown, four-sided with flattened front and reverse, and salt-glazed surface, the flask ranks among the earliest examples of American stoneware to hit the market. According to the Zipps, the family of owners and operators at Crocker Farms, the works combination of freehand incising and stamped decoration link it to the crafts emergence in Manhattan during the second quarter of the 18th century. The flask previously sold for $2,394 on April 22, 2022, at Pook & Pook. A four-sided tea canister ($18,880) sold in Crocker Farms Nov. 3, 2018, auction and was made by the same potter as the flask, bearing similar stamped decoration accompanying incised flowers, appearing to have been rendered by the same hand. Moreover, related juxtaposition of profuse stamping and freehand incising can be noted on the well-known William Crolius heart-shaped inkstand, dated 1773, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This William Crolius, son of the William Crolius who immigrated from Germany to Manhattan in the first quarter of the 18th century, is the man who enslaved, and later freed, the family of people that included a young Thomas W. Commeraw, set free when he was approximately 8 years old. In Commeraws Stoneware: The Life and Work of the First African-American Pottery Owner, Brandt Zipp notes the close relation between the aforementioned canister and the Mets inkstand, stating that it was probably made on the same property that once housed young (Thomas Commeraw) and his family (Zipp, pg. 42). Today, the pottery located in Lower Manhattan is on the grounds of the Metropolitan Correctional Center. For related treatments and decorative elements found on Crolius and Remmey family sherds, dating ca. 1720-65, see Meta F. Janowitz, New York City Stonewares from the African Burial Ground, published in Ceramics in America 2008, figs. 28, 33, 36, 37, 40, and 41. Its an exciting time for the field of American ceramics, and the Zipp family deserves credit for its tremendous role. To learn more, visit www.crockerfarm.com.