and was made at the pottery of John Bell of Waynesboro, PA, sometime circa 1865. This piece is masterfully thrown for its small size, with a flaring rim and incised foot. The surface is heavily decorated with five cobalt swags, some of which are interspersed with two vertical dashes of cobalt. Perhaps most intriguing about this piece, besides its small size and unusual form, is the incised inscription on the bottom, which reads

Staufer and Shank were a pair of cooperative itinerant potters working at Bell's Waynesboro shop sometime circa 1865. A handful of redware pieces bear John Bell's maker's mark as well as the incising "S & S" [for Staufer and Shank] on the bottom. Almost no examples bear a full name inscription, as this piece does. In fact, this dish may be the only extant example of stoneware bearing Staufer and Shank's names (or initials for that matter) on the underside.

This is an important piece of John Bell pottery, both in terms of the rare form and size, as well as its historical documentation of the usually unknown laborers that traveled from pottery to pottery, whose work is rarely recognized.