This reduction-fired round-bodied bottle was bought by the original owner from Aladdin Gallery in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, in the 1970s. It has a finely-crazed celadon glaze with the upper half darkened by ash and an abstract motif on one side. The handle springs from high on the neck like the one on the Les Blakebrough carafe I described in an earlier post. The potter’s mark is an impressed monogram in a square – either JS or SJ.
I can’t find any record of this mark in the published directories or indexes.
Jo Szirer, Joyce Scott and Jock (Hugh) Shimeld all use JS as a mark but the styles are different. John Stroomer signs his current work with his full name. I don’t yet have marks recorded for Jim Simson, Jan Skepper, John Smith, Jeff Springer, Judy Stanaway or Jill Symes – other potters in my database with the initials JS who were active in the 1970s or 1980s.
Sue Jones and Sheryl Ann Johnston use SJ as a mark but, again, the styles are different.
Postscript
The New Zealand potter Jeff Scholes has let us know (see comments) that this pot was made by him in the late 1960s while he was a guest potter at Sturt Pottery. It would have been sold at his exhibition at Aladdin Gallery held in July 1968 (“Exhibitions”, Pottery in Australia, Vol. 8 No. 1, Autumn 1969, p. 52.)
Australian Pottery 