D. Eldreth Salt Glazed Stoneware Crock, Nottingham PA, Cobalt Botanical, 1988

A salt-glazed stoneware crock by David Eldreth of Nottingham, Pennsylvania, impressed on the shoulder D. Eldreth / Nottingham, PA and incised 1988 on the base. The cylindrical body has applied lug handles and is decorated in cobalt blue with sweeping botanical sprays in confident, gestural brushwork, the pebbled salt-glaze surface showing the controlled cobalt bleed of skilled work. Eldreth is a Pennsylvania studio pottery working in the 19th-century Pennsylvania German salt-glaze tradition; this is a contemporary studio piece dated 1988, not a period antique, and the workshop remains in production. At 14 inches with full wraparound decoration it is a large, well-marked example with strong shelf presence.