EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: A Very Good Late 18th or Early 19th Century Marbled Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Platter from the American Northeast

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

A Very Good Late 18th or Early 19th Century Marbled Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Platter from the American Northeast

This is a very good late eighteenth or early nineteenth century two-color marbled slip decorated red earthenware platter that I just acquired! It was previously owned for many years in the Mid-Atlantic region. The size is really special, where most of these types of platters are larger in size. This platter also survives in excellent basically as-made condition! I’m thrilled with it!

Interestingly, I spoke with some longtime dealers, who have handled a number of these types of platters through the years, and they have all said that they have only seen a small group of them in this size, one of which is currently owned in a major New York City antiques collection. Among the people who have owned this particular platter through the years is John Gordon of New York City.

Additionally, this is a type of production that will also be discussed in the two-volume Western New York book that I am currently working on, set up for publication in 2025, whereas variations of this style of marbled plates and platters have been recovered from the site of the circa 1818-1831 Nathaniel Rochester (1752-1831) Pottery in West Bloomfield, New York. One technique from this site was published by the Rochester Museum & Science Center in New York in the 1970s, although after studying this archaeology for the two-volume book, I found there were numerous styles produced at the Rochester Pottery.

Although, this type of marbled design was manufactured at multiple locations in the American Northeast, including archaeological evidence recovered from various contexts on Long Island, suggesting it was an early style made at the Huntington Pottery in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, as well as perhaps at the John Betts Gregory (1782-1842) Pottery in Clinton, New York and at the industry in Norwalk, Connecticut.

One source of inspiration for the style of the colors found on this particular platter may have been English production from the 1700s, some of which has been recovered from colonial archaeological contexts in Philadelphia. For more information - see a story that I posted to this website earlier this year, titled, A Very Interesting Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Dish that was Previously Owned by John Gordon of New York City: http://www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2024/11/english-slipware.html.

Late 18th or Early 19th C. Marbled Slip Decorated Red Earthenware Platter