Extremely Rare and Important Monumental Hagerstown, MD Redware Bowl w/ Slip Decoration and Incised Tree
Spring 2023 Stoneware Auction
Lot #: 286
Extremely Rare and Important Oversized Redware Bowl with Profuse Three-Color Slip Decoration, Hagerstown, MD origin, late 18th or early 19th century, flare-rimmed bowl with triple-beaded rim, the interior decorated with exuberant slip-trailed straight and wavy banding and drape motifs in manganese and cream-colored slip, applied under a clear lead glaze. Underside decorated with an intricate and highly unusual incised design of a flowering tree, accented with stars, emanating from a cross-hatched mound bearing additional smaller flowers. Shenandoah Valley pottery expert, H.E. Comstock, describes the bowl thusly in his book, The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region: "A large, provocative, slip-decorated redware bowl (fig. 4.21) is a rarity because of its artistic decoration and large size, although many large bowls were produced in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Valley. Its interior is profusely slip-decorated and its exterior bottom has an unusual and atypical punched and incised decoration. (fig. 4.21a) that appears to represent a German Christmas tree, a symbol of abundance. The slip-decorated motifs illustrated here, however, have been seen on recovered Hagerstown sherds. The Bells and the Weises are known to have used these designs as well." (Comstock, pg. 91.) Among the largest documented American redware bowls, this lot, grand in both size and decoration, survives as an exceptionally early masterwork of Southern slipware. Literature: Illustrated in Comstock, The Pottery of the Shenandoah Valley Region, pg. 91, figs. 4.21 and 4.21a. Provenance: From an eighty-plus year private collection. A restored crack from rim, extending partway around outer edge of well. A second restored crack from rim, stopping near edge of well. Wear to interior, including some restoration to exfoliation in the well. Some additional small spots of restoration to flakes in cavetto. A smooth 2" rim chip. Diam. 20 1/2" ; H 6 1/4".
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