IMPORTANT W. H. HARRISON 1840 LOG CABIN HARD CIDER BARREL STONEWARE BANK IN COBALT BLUE.
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Item Description
4.25x5.75x6.75". c. 1840 molded stoneware bank in the form of a log cabin with large hard cider barrel at top. Cobalt blue highlights throughout including highlighting all text. Roof panels read "William Henry Harrison/President In 1841/With Tip And Tyler/We'll Burst Vans Boiler/Log Cabin" and "Harrison The Hero Of/Tippecanoe Fort Meigs And/The Thames Against Van/Buren The Demagogue/Of Kinderhook/Hurrah For Old Tip The/Farmer Of North Bend". Barrel has text on each side reading "Hard Cider Boys" and "Log Cabin/ Tippecanoe/ Hard Cider". Some small losses of applied decorations including door and window edges. Additionally, a small loss at a bottom corner where logs meet. Otherwise only minor handling. Fine. Under close blacklight examination the triangular panel of logs above the window appears to have been reinstalled with the adhering material at extreme edges having a slight glow. The molded panel itself is original and does not glow. Strong color and an impressive presence. An important campaign artifact that is sure to appeal to collectors in the fields of political Americana, American stoneware and banks. Rex & Patti Stark Collection.
A note from Americana Specialist Scott Mussell: Years ago, on a trip to Rex's fabled third story china display room I asked him what his favorite piece was- he had a few he highlighted but ended with this bank. Beaming about the importance of stoneware and the incredible size, he then read aloud the inscriptions on the roof while tracing his finger along the detailed edge of the molded cabin flashing a rare grin. As impressed as I was by the piece then, examining it in detail now has left me even more so. Perhaps the earliest known political bank, this 1840 treasure checks all the boxes- clearly a campaign artifact, iconic log cabin and hard cider barrel motif, intriguing text, superlative quality construction with a large size that gives it tremendous display presence. It's difficult to say definitively who molded the piece but a fair attribution would be Thomas Haig Jr. of Philadelphia who was known to produce log cabins, one of which we offered in our last sale. Given the prevalence of stoneware by the 1840s, it could have been produced by one of the skilled artisans in any of the major metropolises. What is for sure is that the artist was a skilled hand as this piece is sizable and of superlative quality. The artisan took the time to delineate each board of the roof and precisely space the impressed text ensuring no interruption in the message. They were careful to alternate the color of each log and detail the overlapping corners. The results are most impressive and the fact it has survived is incredible. Rex obtained this bank decades ago from Edmund B. Sullivan, Professor and Curator at the Hartford University Museum of American Political Life. The museum had an incident that caused damage to a collector's loaned material that required an undisclosed but assuredly rather hefty payment. In exchange for covering these costs Rex obtained this bank. While I couldn't find the full history of where Sullivan had sourced the bank, an Ohio APIC sage recalled another Ohioan, John Gibson, had an important Harrison bank that transferred to an East coast museum over 40 years ago. Suffice to say the bank has never been publicly available, making this a likely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to obtain what, in our opinion, is the finest political campaign bank extant and one of the finest artifacts of the important 1840 Presidential campaign.
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