EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Marbled Red Earthenware Dish Discovered Today in Western Massachusetts

Sunday, June 26, 2016

A Marbled Red Earthenware Dish Discovered Today in Western Massachusetts

Quickly, I would like to show this marbled red earthenware dish that I picked in a shop this afternoon in Palmer, Massachusetts. When I came across it, the dish was filled with nineteenth-century glass stoppers.

Initually, I had considered whether this object could have been produced in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in the 1960's, where similar objects were produced as novelty items for the tourist market; however, the lack of a Williamsburg stamp combined with the obvious wear on the interior suggests this plate was older (to me).

Nevertheless, this object also reminded me of a nineteenth-century marbled red earthenware dish that Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates sold last weekend in Mount Crawford, Virginia.

The dish was catalogued as an "English slip-decorated red earthenware dish with manganese, a lead glaze, a coggled pie crimp edge and swirled yellow slip-decoration from the early-nineteenth-century."

What I have done below is I have compared the dish that I discovered today to an actual twentieth-century dish made in Colonial Williamsburg, as-well-as a nineteenth-century slip-decorated loaf dish probably made by a country potter in the northeast of England; although, I have also shown the dish that was sold at Jeffrey Evans most recent auction.

Note: Try to notice the similarities and the differences found with the clay color in the objects that are shown below. I also want to mention that every dish I have ever seen from Colonial Williamsburg in this type of form and decoration is boldly stamped with the museum's mark.

The last bit information that I want to mention is that Robesonian, Pennsylvania antiques dealer, Greg Kramer owns a group of dishes that are similar to the dish that I found today. He has suggested to me in the past that his plates may have been made by a mid-to-late-nineteenth century or early-twentieth century potter in Pennsylvania.

Newly Discovered Dish