My wife picked this up today at a second hand store. The first photo shows what I saw when she brought it home. I thought it was a simple hand painted porcelain container with a lid. After I removed the tape holding the two pieces together, I lifted the lid only to find the “lid” was more than a lid. Lid with a cup attached hanging upside down inside larger piece (second photo with the ruler to hold the lid in place as it came out of the base). The third photo shows the “lid with attached cup” flipped over next to the base piece. There are parts of these pieces that are NOT glazed (shiny). The base/foot of the larger piece, the top (mouth/rim) of the large piece where the lid sets on it, and the “valley” (underside of the lid, small piece between the base of the small cup and outer edge of bottom side of lid). I think you can pick it out in the photos. A couple of the dragon flies on the larger (outside) piece have a bit of extra slurry right where the head/body of the dragonflies are which forms a little bit of a raised effect of the dragon flies. The base of this piece appears to be signed “B. Lipton”. The last photo is from a horse hair pot that she found which includes a signature that is similar in structure to the signature on the bottom of the first piece in question to maybe show that both are made from similar material? I am not suggesting that they are the same other than maybe similar material. Neither of these pieces have holes/vents in them, so I don’t see these being used as a tart/candle burner.
Any ideas? Very thick/heavy piece(s).
Thanks for the info on the first piece. I will try to contact her to see if she can help identify the piece. Both fit together perfectly and neither are glazed where they contact each other.
The second piece is a Navajo Indian horse hair pot. I was simply showing a photo of the bottom to show that the material seemed to be the same for comparison reasons only.