While visiting New York City about four years ago with my niece Alexis, we acquired an eighteenth century British marbled slip decorated earthenware sherd that had been deaccessioned from a local museum in the 1980s, although it was previously recovered along the Hudson River in New York City.
Furthermore, a number of examples of this type of pottery are owned today by the New York City Archaeological Repository in Manhattan, whereas archaeologists have recovered various sherds within a circa 1670-1785 archaeological context in New York City.
This was apparently a type of English pottery that was shipped to the American colonies in the 1700s, seeing that related artifacts have been recovered from archaeological contexts throughout New England, including part of a related dish found amongst two shipwrecks off the coast of New Castle, New Hampshire, which neighbors Portsmouth, New Hampshire to the south. Some of the artifacts recovered from this context will also be included in my forthcoming eighth book, titled, An Influential Family of Early Potters: The Clarks of New Hampshire and Related Businesses.
However, I just learned about another related sherd that was discovered last week around an old foundation hole in South Berwick, Maine. The context of the foundation is currently unknown to me, but South Berwick is located along the Piscataqua River, a few miles upriver from Portsmouth.
Interestingly, it is unclear if there is any relationship, although a late eighteenth or early nineteenth century marbled slip decorated red earthenware dish from an American manufacturer sold a few weeks ago with a somewhat similar decorative technique, as part of the Dr. Richard J. Wattenmaker Collection at Freeman’s | Hindman in Philadelphia: https://hindmanauctions.com/auctions/2083-For-the-Love-of-Barnes-The-Collection-of-Dr-Richard-J-Wattenmaker/lot/207.
18th Century Marbled Slip Decorated Earthenware Sherds
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