EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Eighteenth or Early-Nineteenth Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Pot with a Tin Lid

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Eighteenth or Early-Nineteenth Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Pot with a Tin Lid

I purchased this eighteenth or early-nineteenth century slip-decorated red earthenware pot a few months ago from Robesonia, Pennsylvania antiques dealer Greg Kramer; he has owned it for as long as I have known him. Although, both handles were broken long ago, I have always loved this pot because it was not thrown way. It was still used as it always had been, just without the handles. The pot also retains a very old tin lid, which I suspect was made for the pot after its original lid broke.

The form of this object is similar to wares manufactured in southeastern Pennsylvania in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth century. The glaze color and style of the slip combined with the form is also found on wares made in other parts of the Mid-Atlantic region.

I have always enjoyed this type of form, probably because it can be associated with colonial production in places like Philadelphia, Bucks County, among other locations. It is also a form that is very difficult to find today. And in some cases, this form seems to have been a style that Pennsylvania potters paid special attention to by some of the elaborate decorations that are known today through archaeology, museums and private collections.

Here is a link to an article I posted on October 28, 2019 showing a similar formed jar decorated in a very colorful glaze. I have also posted a similar formed and decorated jar from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, which was gifted to the museum by Robert W. de Forest (1848-1931) only a few years after he died in 1933.

If you look closely, you will notice that there is small traces of green copper decoration on this pot just like that found on the example from the MET.

Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Pot with Tin Lid