An Excellent Red Earthenware Jar Decorated with a Repeated Swag Decoration Acquired Yesterday at Antiques Week in New Hampshire

I think this eighteenth or early nineteenth century America red earthenware jar completely covered in slip is great! I picked it up yesterday at Rachel & Josh Gurley’s antiques show at the Deerfield Fairgrounds as part this year’s Antiques Week in New Hampshire. Although, it is the style of the slip that caught my eye, which reminds me of both slipware produced in Charlestown, Massachusetts before 1775 as well as some of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century stamped stoneware produced in Manhattan. I was told it sold in a group lot at Northeast Auctions in New Hampshire twenty to thirty years ago.

Interestingly, I posted this jar on Facebook and Instagram last night, and Jonathan Rickard who authored the book Mocha and Related Dipped Wares, 1770-1939 in 2006, commented saying that the repeated swag pattern derived from architectural details developed by the architect Robert Adam (1728-1792), a type of decoration found on various objects manufactured in Europe and America in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Furthermore, Adam was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his older brother John, Robert took on the family business, which included lucrative work for the Board of Ordnance, after William's death.

In 1754, he left for Rome, spending nearly five years on the continent studying architecture under Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820) and Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778). On his return to Britain he established a practice in London, where he was joined by his younger brother James. Here he developed the "Adam Style", and his theory of "movement" in architecture, based on his studies of antiquity and became one of the most successful and fashionable architects in the country. Adam held the post of Architect of the King's Works from 1761 to 1769.

Robert Adam was a leader of the first phase of the classical revival in England and Scotland from around 1760 until his death. He influenced the development of Western architecture, both in Europe and in North America. Adam designed interiors and fittings as well as houses. Much of his work consisted of remodeling existing houses, as well as contributions to Edinburgh's townscape and designing romantic pseudo-mediaeval country.

An Excellent Red Earthenware Jar Decorated with a Repeated Swag Decoration

18th or Early 19th Century American Slip Red Earthenware Jar 

Probably Made Somewhere in the Northeast

Decorated with a Repeated Swag Pattern Applied with Slip Decoration

Stands 6 7/8" Tall

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Another View of the Jar

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Another View of the Jar

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