A Very Rare 19th Century Red Earthenware Well Post Made in Pennsylvania

This is a nineteenth-century red earthenware object, which has always stood out (to me) as one of the rarest forms of American pottery that I have ever seen. This fifteen-inch red earthenware well post was sold by Pook & Pook in Downington, Pennsylvania on November 11, 2011. It was an object that was included in the lifelong collection of Lester Breininger (1935-2011), who was an influential Pennsylvania-German potter in Robesonia, Pennsylvania.

Breininger was known for the red earthenware that he produced that was often decorated with distelfink, which is a stylized goldfinch that regularly appears in Pennsylvania-Dutch/German folk art. Breininger also often decorated his pottery with tulips and other Pennsylvania-Dutch/German cultural symbols.

There is an inscription written in slip on this well post, which reads, "Made By John Ing May Town 1835."

If you look closely, the edges of this object have been decorated in a similar coggled style, which many plates and platters from Pennsylvania were decorated in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. Lester Breininger also decorated some of the plates and platters that he produced in the twentieth and twenty-first-centuries with this type of coggled rim.

Unfortunately, the history of this well post was not included in the catalog that was published by Pook & Pook for Breininger's sale. However, I bet there is a history that is known based on how Breininger collected, and also the dealers, who he regularly purchased Pennsylvania-made red earthenware from (mostly) in the latter years of the twentieth-century (after 1970).

Note: Here is a link that will bring you to the Lester Breininger auction catalog from 2011.

19th Century Red Earthenware Well Post

Very Rare 19th Century Red Earthenware Well Post Made in Pennsylvania

Written in Slip, "Made By John Ing May Town 1835"

Circa 1835

Stands 15" Tall

Lester Breininger Collection - Robesonia, PA
Here is a link to this Object's Auction Listing in the Lester Breininger Catalog

Photo Courtesy: Pook & Pook - Downington, PA

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