EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Red Earthenware from the Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area in the Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Red Earthenware from the Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area in the Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts

Yesterday's article presented many of the eighteenth and nineteenth century red earthenware and stoneware objects that I viewed with my nephew Jason last week, while we toured the Frank L. Horton Museum Center at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The highlight of this collection was certainly the William C. and Susan S. Mariner Southern Ceramics Gallery that opened on October 27, 2017; however, the museum also displays a phenomenal exhibit devoted to the eighteenth and nineteenth century decorative arts manufactured locally in the Winston-Salem area.

In particular, a section of the gallery has been devoted to local red earthenware production, some of which has been previously published in past articles for Ceramics in America. We were told by the tour guide that most of the pottery had been housed in various buildings owned by MESDA, but the museum decided that it would be a better attraction to exhibit all of the pottery together.

The collection demonstrates a remarkable variety of local production, much of which receives national attention today, such as press molded bottles, molds for bottles, slip-decorated dishes, an incredible inkwell, an actual stove and wares that appear to imitate English production. But the most significant piece is without a doubt an original store sign, which I consider to be possibly the best example of domestic colonial red earthenware production in existence today.

According to MESDA, "Master potter Gottfried Aust made the shop sign in 1773 in response to a church board directive "to place proper signs at the houses of the tradesmen, stores and taverns in order that strangers could find them easily..."

Aust arrived in Bethabara, North Carolina in 1755 and immediately sought local stores of clay and flint for use in his potworks. By the spring of 1756 he had conducted firing experiments on these materials, and in August he built a larger kiln in which he fired earthenware.

Aust stayed in Bethabara until 1771, where upon he moved to the Moravian's newly built town of Salem, North Carolina and served as master of the pottery until his death in 1788."

Gottfried Aust's Store Sign, Salem, NC