Pickled oyster jar from Downing’s Oyster House

ca. 1840

Place madeNew York, United States

Salt-glazed stoneware

Overall: 8 1/2 × 5 in. (21.6 × 12.7 cm)

Purchase

2013.26

This simple stoneware jar, intended to hold pickled oysters, was used by Downing’s Oyster House, the most celebrated oyster establishment in mid-nineteenth-century New York City. Downing’s was the business of Thomas Downing (1791-1866), who was born to a free black family in Virginia and became one of the most respected black men in pre-Civil War New York. Downing hailed from Chincoteague, on the Chesapeake, where he learned how to dig clams, catch terrapin, and rake oysters. He settled in New York as a young man and began raking oysters on the Hudson; in 1825, he opened his oyster cellar at 5 Broad Street. Downing’s became renowned for its excellent oysters and was a favored eatery and meeting place among the city’s business and political elite. Downing was also active as an abolitionist: he helped found the all-black United Anti-Slavery Society of the City of New York in 1836 and petitioned the state for equal suffrage for black men. His five children were educated at the African Free School.

DescriptionCylindrical jar with tapering shoulder and cylindrical neck; stamped below neck and filled with cobalt oxide: “T. DOWNING / PICKLED / OYSTERS / NO 5 BROAD ST / NEW YORK”

ClassificationsCERAMICS