Extremely Rare and Important Slip-Decorated Redware Sugar Bowl with Elaborate Applied Decoration, attributed to John Nice, Montgomery County, PA, circa 1830, ovoid bowl with footed base, semi-rounded rim, and applied handles with gadrooned accents. Surface covered in a mottled brown manganese glaze and decorated on each side with an applied design of a flower blossom flanked by leaves, accented in copper and cream-colored slip brushwork. Surface further decorated around the body and under the handles with cream-colored slip spots, and covered in a clear lead glaze. Original domed lid with manganese-glazed surface and ornamental, stepped finial featuring scrolled embellishments and applied clay orbs throughout, additionally decorated with cream-colored slip spots and covered in a clear lead glaze. Among American redware authorities, the lidded bowls of John Nice are considered one of the iconic forms of the Pennsylvania-German school. This outstanding work is possibly the finest Nice sugar bowl known, rivaling in quality examples held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Winterthur. Its large applied floral motif and employment of copper slip decoration are most unusual. Provenance: A fresh-to-the-market example, purchased in 1961 at a Northampton County, PA auction, where it was described as a "Mexican sugar bowl". Literature: For an example of this John Nice form, see Garvan, The Pennsylvania-German Collection, p. 192, fig. 96. Bowl with a rim chip, some typical glaze wear to interior of rim, some wear to applied decoration and handles, and some very minor wear to slip spot decoration. Lid with some small spots of wear to applied decoration, some spots of glaze loss to edge of lid, and some wear to flange on underside of lid. H (including lid) 5 1/2" ; H (excluding lid) 3" ; Diameter 4 1/4".
