Stoneware, made of clay containing silica and kaolin and fired at a higher temperature than earthenware, was first made in America early in the eighteenth century. Hard, thick-walled, inert, nonporous, and therefore ideal for salting, pickling, and storing acidic foodstuffs, stoneware became the dominant ceramic for utility vessels and containers in the years following the Revolution. With its wide mouth, sturdy hand grips, and ample, gently serpentine outline, this jar is among the earliest and finest examples. The New York City potters who made this jar between 1790 and 1810 were expert at decorating the gray, salt-glazed bodies of their wares with carefully incised figures filled in with brilliant blue cobalt-oxide glaze. This is an exceedingly rare example decorated on two sides; it has a large, striding lion on one side and a sinuous flower with radiating petals on the other.