Stoneware Crock
date: label: date made
content: 1854-1867
name: label: maker
content: Burger, John
notes: label: Description
content: This stoneware butter crock was made by John Burger, who operated a pottery in Rochester, New York, between 1839 and 1870. It is one gallon in capacity with a maker’s mark just below the rim. Its floral design is rendered in cobalt blue, and the interior is brown glazed.
label: Description
content: John Burger came from Alsace-Lorraine in France, and first worked at a pottery in Lyons on the Erie Canal. In 1839 he moved to Rochester and joined Nathan Clark and Company as manager of the pottery. In 1855 Burger became the owner of the pottery and continued in the business of making stoneware for domestic uses—preserve jars, churns, pitchers and batter pitchers, cream pots, jugs, molasses jugs, water fountains, beer bottles, stove tubes, and the butter pot seen here. He was joined in the business by his sons in the 1860s. Decorative floral motifs of this kind were common by the 1850s.
label: Description
content: Early in the 19th century, the potters themselves executed the designs, but later they employed women to paint the pottery’s motifs onto the vessels. Women’s skills in writing and in decorative techniques expressed in the home prepared them to execute designs with fluency and without any formal art education.
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Rochester
topic: label: related event
content: Expansion and Reform
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Food
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content: Work
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
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content: New York Stoneware
label: Exhibition
content: On the Water
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr. Cornelius and Sui-ling Soo Osgood
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.319884.161
label: catalog number
content: 319884.161
label: accession number
content: 319884
objectType: label: Object Name
content: jar
label: Object Name
content: crock
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, stoneware, coarse (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 1/4 in x 3 3/8 in; 15.875 cm x 8.5725 cm