EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Very Good Late 18th or 19th Century Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Bottle

Saturday, August 26, 2023

A Very Good Late 18th or 19th Century Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Bottle

You may recall an article I posted to this website on August 11, 2023, titled, A Great Late 18th or Early 19th Century Three-Color Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Jar, writing, "While visiting Western New York earlier this summer to work on my forthcoming New York book, I saw this early red earthenware jar in a dealer's inventory, where I learned that it was heading to the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association Show at Antiques Week in New Hampshire. I also had the opportunity to buy it then, and for whatever reason I did not, although I did not forget about it. And I decided not to make that same mistake again, so I purchased it yesterday at the N.H.A.D.A. Show in Manchester, New Hampshire from Victor, New York antiques dealer Gene Pratt.

This late eighteenth or nineteenth century three-color slip decorated red earthenware jar is really something else! The abstract decoration on the jar alternates between two-colored slip designs around the entire exterior, whereas the rim is glazed in a green slip. I am not sure of the manufacturer, but I suspect it was made in either Pennsylvania or another location somewhere in the Northeast.

The only comparable or related object that I know about in a museum or private collection today is a much smaller two-color slip decorated red earthenware jar that is about four inches tall, which was previously owned by Ohio antiques dealer David Good. That object is similar although smaller in shape with the same type of green rim and a single colored slip design on two sides of the jar. A Hartford, Connecticut origin has previously been suggested for this jar, but I currently do not have any evidence to prove that.

Nevertheless, the jar that I acquired stands ten inches tall, and it is definitely one of the more artistic examples of early American red earthenware that I have seen surface in a while, which was previously owned in a private collection in New York."

Interestingly, I just learned earlier this week about what I believe to be a third example of this type of decorated object that is owned by Robesonia, Pennsylvania antiques dealer Greg Kramer. Although, the form of this object is in the shape of a bottle, but the slip is applied in the same style as the previous two jars that I referenced. Furthermore, there are also related characteristics in the form of this bottle when compared to the jars; however, this still does not identify an exact origin for these three objects, seeing that I was told that this bottle does not retain any type of concrete evidence that it is from Pennsylvania...so I am still saying that these objects were most likely made in either Pennsylvania or somewhere further north (New Jersey, New York or New England).

Late 18th or 19th Century Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Bottle