"Jazz bowl" or "New Yorker", manufactured by Cowan Pottery, c.1930-1931 (earthenware)

Images of skyscrapers, streetlights, liquor bottles, ocean liners, glasses, signs, and musical instruments capture the excitement of an evening’s indulgences in New York City during the early 1930s. Viktor Schreckengost's design for the Jazz bowl was created using the sgraffito technique, whereby black slip is applied to the white clay body and then the slip is scratched through to create the images. A final application of an "Egyptian blue" copper cobalt glaze enhances the depth and energy of the images, and, as Schreckengost described, reflects that "funny blue light in New York in 1931 when Cab Calloway's band was playing." The first Jazz bowl originated when Cowan pottery was commissioned to create a work evocative of New York by Eleanor Roosevelt and future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The success of the first work inspired Cowan to produce a limited number of similar bowls, of which this example is among the earliest.