With that said, I came across this upcoming auction listing this morning that will sell at an upcoming Pook and Pook sale in Downington, Pennsylvania. The multi-colored plate comes with no attribution other than it being a product suggested to have been in Pennsylvania in the nineteenth-century; however, the slip decoration on the plate appears very-familiar to me.
The following excerpt was taken from an article I wrote on August 24th that described an important group of bowls that were sold in 1997 that had been deaccessioned from the Snow Hill Nunnery in Quincy, Pennsylvania. The bowls were made by John Bell, a nineteenth-century potter from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, who was a prominent member of the Bell family that I cited above.
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A friend of mine, Pennsylvania antiques dealer, Greg Kramer has mentioned to me in recent memory the importance of a sale held in Pennsylvania in the 1990's that was established to sell the contents of the Snow Hill Nunnery in Quincy, Pennsylvania. Ultimately, the sale raised funds which helped repair the church of the German Seventh Day Baptist Society of Snow Hill. This sale featured an extremely rare set of forty red earthenware bowls that were commissioned by this religious group in the nineteenth-century from an important local potter's business - today, these plates are highly prized among collectors, dealers and museums - seldom, have any reappeared in the public marketplace since the initial sale in 1997.According to an article written by Lita Solis-Cohen for Maine Antique Digest in 1997, titled, 'Contents of Snow Hill Nunnery Bowls Them Over,'One of the most interesting sales this summer was held at the auction gallery of Horst Auction Center in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. The contents of the Snow Hill Nunnery were sold, which was a community founded in the eighteenth-century being a direct offshoot of the Ephratta Cloisters (religious community established in Ephratta, Pennsylvania in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel).
Clarence Spoon, who cataloged the sale, said, "The buildings, dating from 1814 through 1830 housed the celibate brothers and sisters and the married congregation. The last celibate died in 1896 and things remained untouched until now. It is a time capsule. Most of the furniture was made there in the cabinet shop, and everything is in as-found condition, much of it paint decorated."
Also according to Clarence Spoon, "There is an adult-sized cradle used for an elderly blind sister. Linens include homespun chaff bags and sheets and pillow covers with initials on them so the owners can be identified. Imagine finding forty matching slip-decorated redware serving bowls in fine condition probably made by the Bell family (John Bell) in (nearby) Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. Quincy is only a few miles from Waynesboro.
With the help of my sister-in-law, it took me from February (1997) until June (1997) to clean the mud wasps from the drawers of chests, remove bird dirt from the benches, and rescue a few rye straw baskets. Two groundhogs chewed the bottoms out of most of them. We dumped the chaff out of the bed ticks and discarded as many textiles as we saved because they had been gnawed on by rodents."
The collection of red earthenware bowls which are presumed to have been made new for the Snow Hill Society did very-well. A small number of the bowls have sold again since this important sale achieving similar prices to what they brought in 1997.
"Forty redware bowls decorated with green and white flower-like slip stars sold for prices ranging from $5,500 to $15,500 (note: there was no buyer's premium charged for this sale) for a total of $345,000. The forty bowls accounted for more than 41% of the sale, which totaled $837,860.
Each of the Snow Hill bowls was decorated with a large six, seven, eight or nine-pointed white slip star or flower, each accented with three or four green slip lines. The stars were surrounded by one to four lines of green slip alternating with wavy lines of white slip. The bowls, which were probably made at the Bell family pottery in nearby Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, were used to serve stew during a ritual love feast by the German Seventh Day Baptist nuns and monks in the nineteenth-century. There were also several pieces of redware stamped by John Bell that were (also) included in the sale."
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You can be your own judge whether the decoration on the following objects are related - personally, I can see a resemblance. The bowl is one of the bowls that originally sold in 1997; however, this particular bowl resurfaced, again in 2009 at a Jeffrey Evans auction in Mount Crawford, Virginia.None-the-less, if this is a John Bell slip decorated plate - then it is the only plate with this kind of decoration attributed to the Bell family - and, also John Bell's Pottery in Waynesboro that I know of today. Both objects exhibit the same types of slip, the same six-pointed star - and, basically the same patterns with the exception of the '1841' date seen in the middle of the star on the plate - and, the slip circle seen in the middle of the bowl. But, I guess that's it's also possible that another potter could have imitated this decoration, too in Pennsylvania.
19th Century Red Earthenware Plate Possibly Made by John Bell in Waynesboro, PA
The Slip Decoration is Very Similar to Bowls John Bell Made for the Snow Hill Society in PA
The Center of the Plate is Dated in Slip '1841'
Measures 12 1/2" Diameter
Photo Courtesy: Pook & Pook Auctions - Downington, PA
19th Century Red Earthenware Bowl Made for the Snow Hill Nunnery in Quincy, PA
Bowl Made at the John Bell Pottery in Waynesboro, PA
Originally Sold at the Snow Hill Nunnery Sale at Horst Auction Center in PA in 1997
This Bowl Sold, Again in Virginia in 2009
Measures 10 1/2" in Diameter
Photo Courtesy: Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates - Mount Crawford, VA
Please Stay Tuned...Much More to Come...
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