Dish

Gallery 103, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Main Building

Dish

1793

Artist/maker unknown, American, Pennsylvania German

Pennsylvania Germans excelled at sgraffito decoration, which involved coating a red earthenware body with a white slip and then scraping through the coating to create the design. The nervous outline of the leaves and the striped, pinwheel flowers on this dish are characteristic of this unidentified artist, who worked in Montgomery County in the 1790s. The man in the happy couple may have been a self-portrait, as the German rhymed couplet around the border translates, "God created all beautiful maidens. They are for the potters but not for the priests."

Gallery 103, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Object Details

Title:

Dish

Date:

1793

Artist:

Artist/maker unknown, American, Pennsylvania German

Medium:

Lead-glazed earthenware, white slip (for sgraffito decoration), copper oxide

Dimensions:

2 1/4 x 12 1/8 inches (5.7 x 30.8 cm)

Classification:

Containers

Credit Line:

Gift of John T. Morris, 1900

Accession Number:

1900-19

Geography:

Made in Frederick Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America

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Gallery 103, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Main Building

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