A Comb-Decorated Red Earthenware Dish that was Found Almost Ten-Years Ago at a Flea Market in Massachusetts

I discovered this slip-decorated red earthenware dish at an Essex County, Massachusetts flea market almost ten-years ago. I bought it for the wonderful combed slip-decoration, and it has hung on a wall in my house ever since. I walk by it many times every day; however, I have never really given it much thought. Similar decorations were applied on English slipware in the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries; although, this type of decoration was also applied on products made in Philadelphia in the eighteenth-century.

Curiously, I decided to take a better look at this dish yesterday in comparison to the marbled red earthenware dishes, which I have discovered in central Maine and western Massachusetts in the past two-months.

The combed slip-deocration on this dish looks to be in incredible condition, and that's probably why I never really gave this piece much attention after I hung it on my wall. Although, the back of the dish seems to have a little bit more age.

Nevertheless, I also compared this dish to three nineteenth-century slip-decorated red earthenware banks from Buckley, England, where there appears to be some similarities found in the clay, the lead glaze and the color of the slip.

Traditional red earthenware remained an industry with country potters in England well into the twentieth-century, and this seems (to me) that it could be related to this industry whether it is from the nineteenth or  twentieth-century.

Note: I do remember the dealer telling me that this dish was found in a house cleanout, but I do not remember where. Although, it was likely in coastal Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire or southern Maine. But this piece is also interesting since it may represent that English red earthenware still found its way into America during a later period of production.

Likely 20th Century Combed Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Dish

Likely Made by a Country Potter in England

Found Years Ago at an Essex County, Massachusetts Flea Market

 Measures 10" Long and 9" High

View of the Back

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