To follow up on yesterday's post, titled, A Preview of Forthcoming Tenth Book: Some Information About Spiraled Slip Designs Found on 18th Century Coastal Massachusetts Red Earthenware, where I mentioned a possible influence for some of the circled or swirled designs found on American red earthenware and stoneware dating from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, largely with manufacturers in coastal Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey - here are some similar designs used on seventeenth century European red earthenware.
One source of inspiration may have been a type of pottery known as Metropolitan ware, which was produced in the Surrey-Hampshire border area in England, and was a major supplier of everyday household pottery to the London area. But this type of ceramic has also been recovered from various American archaeological contexts, including in the Boston area.
However, the main source for this type of production may have been Werra ware and Weser ware, which are related styles of slip-decorated earthenware made in central Germany from the second half of the sixteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century. Werra and Weser wares were part of a wider flourishing movement of Renaissance slip decorated earthenware manufactured in Europe which began in the early sixteenth century. This included the French pottery of Beauvais and Saintonge, North Holland slip decorated earthenware and similar wares made in other parts of the German-speaking lands, as well as in Switzerland, Poland and Hungary. These types of wares were imported into Britain, and similar wares are thought to have influenced the slip-trailed Metropolitan pottery made in the seventeenth century, as well as some Staffordshire and other wares.
Furthermore, it would make sense that the popularity of this design then spread to America in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, as demonstrated in yesterday's post, where some potters seem to have produced a related spiraled design in places like Charlestown, Massachusetts and the Salem / Danvers, Massachusetts area before the American Revolution, as well as perhaps Bristol County, Massachusetts after 1775.
Additionally, some of the stoneware objects that are adorned with this type of spiraled design are referred to as a cobalt decorated "watch spring." This probably stems from the watch spring design, which was first used when mechanical watches were invented in Europe in the fifteenth or sixteen century that evolved from larger, spring-driven clocks. Mechanical watches first emerged in Europe during the sixteenth century, evolving from earlier spring-powered clocks. While the exact origin is debated, German cities like Nuremberg and Augsburg are credited with producing some of the earliest examples.
Some Spiraled Designs Used on Seventeenth Century Pottery
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