EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Two Red Earthenware Sculptures Found in Ohio and Pennsylvania

Monday, June 10, 2019

Two Red Earthenware Sculptures Found in Ohio and Pennsylvania

Later this week, a feature story I wrote about the Stahl family pottery in Powder Valley, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania should be published in Antiques & Auction News. The Stahls operated under three generations of production from about the mid-nineteenth century until the early 1900s. They then ceased production only to re-establish the company in 1933, which operated until the 1950s. A large amount of pottery from the twentieth century production exists today, much of which is highly collectible and extremely well-made.

But the Stahls were also an unusual company seeing that they were a traditional utilitarian pottery business that operated in the 1800s and continued to produce well into the 1900s. Very few American potteries were able to find this type of success after the utilitarian red earthenware market had been largely affected by the Industrial Revolution. Although I also suspect that there may be some small potteries which produced red earthenware in the twentieth century that are not well recognized today.

For instance, I just acquired this wonderful twentieth century hand-modeled red earthenware sculpture of a man duck hunting, holding his gun in one hand and a duck in the other, and a decoy is seen in front of him on the ground. He is also stepping on some plants. The glaze colors and slip-decoration used on this object is really wonderful. The skill of the sculpture is also great. On the back of the man's coat is his duck hunting license and what I assume is the year of production, reading "OHIO / 305 / 1948." Ohio is also where this object was reportedly found years ago.

Overall though, I think this is a great subject, especially since the commercial aspect of duck hunting with decoys was extremely popular in the 1940s. I have never seen anything quite like this subject before made from red earthenware, decorated with all sorts of wonderful glaze colors and slip.

Interestingly, two or three years ago I bought another red earthenware hand-modeled sculpture that I believe is a tooth pick holder from Robesonia, Pennsylvania antiques dealer Greg Kramer. Greg told me that this object was found somewhere in Pennsylvania. This object shows a squirrel climbing a tree stump, also decorated with wonderful glaze colors.

Based on the size of these two objects, the way they were manufactured, the combination of glaze colors used to create the green on the base, and where they were found, I believe they could have been made by the same person or at the same pottery. I do not know the potter or artist who is responsible for these pieces, but they are really well made and might be a type of production from the Ohio-Pennsylvania area that has somewhat been forgotten today. I would also be happy to continue to buy these sculptures, but these are the only two like this that I currently know about.

Two Red Earthenware Sculptures Found in Ohio and Pennsylvania