Great 19th Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Dish Recovered in New York City

I have previously posted some articles on this website showing some of the great slip-decorated red earthenware recovered by Scott Jordan and Maribelle Costes within various eighteenth and nineteenth century contexts in New York City, including Manhattan and Staten Island. I also illustrated a number of these slipware objects, as well as other artifacts kept at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York, which were published in a research article I wrote for the October 2018 issue of Maine Antique Digest, titled, "The Red Earthenware Available in the 18th and 19th Centuries in New York City."

This is another example of domestic slipware found in New York City by Scott Jordan and Maribelle Costes, which was recovered from a nineteenth century privy. For a few months now, I have thought about where this piece could have been made, and I cannot recall having seen this type of decoration before on pottery manufactured in Connecticut, Manhattan, Long Island, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. These are the areas that typically makeup the domestic red earthenware found in New York City in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

Although, this really is a spectacular discovery; the manufacture of this dish reminds me of dishes produced at the Huntington Pottery on Long Island, as well as a business established by Henry Jacob Van Saun (1755-1829) in River Edge, Bergen County, New Jersey about 1811. The business was later purchased by George Wolfkiel (1805-1867), a potter who had relocated from Franklin County, Pennsylvania, as early as 1830. In fact, Wolfkiel is responsible for a lot of the slipware produced in River Edge until 1867.

Interestingly, though, I viewed a somewhat similar designed nineteenth century slip-decorated red earthenware dish last year that was recovered from a nineteenth century context in Patterson, New Jersey. Patterson is located near Bergen County and about eighteen miles northwest of Manhattan.

Some of the slipware manufactured in River Edge was also discussed in a research story I wrote for the January 31, 2020 issue of Antiques & the Arts Weekly, titled, "Early Red Earthenware & Stoneware Found on Staten Island."

19th Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Dish Recovered in New York City

19th Century Slip-Decorated Red Earthenware Dish Recovered in New York City

Possibly Made at the Huntington Pottery on Long Island or River Edge, New Jersey

See Article for More Information

Photo Courtesy: Scott Jordan and Maribelle Costes

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