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Middle Tennessee stoneware jar, signed G W Dunn

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Middle Tennessee two handled jar, signed in script, "G W Dunn" (George Washington Dunn, Tennessee) with incised line and sine wave around upper midsection. Incised "3" on opposite side denotes gallon capacity. Red brown dip glaze, grey on lower section. Condition - overall excellent condition, faint hairlines on underside of base. 17" height. Early 20th century. George Washington Dunn (1870-1944) was closely related to the earliest Lefever, Dunn, Hitchcock/Hedgecough and Spears potters in Middle Tennessee. His father, Isaac Newton Dunn, was also a potter. While George has been associated with seven different pottery sites in DeKalb and Putnam Counties, he never appears as a potter in census records. He has been called the best turner of his time. This is taken to mean the best turner of the 20th century in his region. He worked at the Cookeville Pottery, which was the last Putnam County pottery in the 1930s. The cover of "A Survey of Historic Pottery Making in Tennessee, by Samuel D. Smith and Stephen T. Rogers", 1979, shows an image taken around 1937 of the Eli Lefever kiln. G. W.’s photograph has been superimposed on that image. Research courtesy of Carole Wahler who relies on A Survey of Historic Pottery Making in Tennessee 1979 by Samuel D. Smith and Stephen T. Rogers and personal communications with them, as well as census and genealogical records.

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