Pan (or Basin)
Earthenware with slip decoration
Attributed to Henry Piercy (1765-1809)
Alexandria Virginia
C. 1795
13.75″ diameter, 3.5″ depth
Henry Piercy was Alexandria’s first recorded potter arriving in 1792 from Philadelphia where he had learned his trade from his brother Christian. He announced his presence and intentions in the Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser in November of that year as proprietor of an “Earthenware Manufactory”, erected at considerable expense and that the wares produced would be “equal to any work in Phil. or elsewhere”. As might be expected, the wares produced by Henry in his Alexandria pottery closely resemble in style and form those of Philadelphia and he in fact advertised that he was producing “Philadelphia Earthenware.” Distinguishing between earthenware produced in Philadelphia by members of the Piercy family and those produced by Henry in Alexandria with certainty can be accomplished through scientific analysis (spectroscopy). Visual analysis of individual pieces is less precise but this history of this example in the estate of a longtime Alexandria collector who focused on local artifacts and the precision of the slip application and overall quality of the clay point strongly to an Alexandria origin.
Born in the lower Rhineland of what is now Germany, Henry immigrated to Philadelphia with his family. He enlisted in the Revolutionary army in 1776 at the age of 20, served at Valley Forge, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1777. He served as an aide-de-camp to General George Washington and was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Archeologist at Mount Vernon have unearthed numerous shards that are very similar to the materials and pattern of this pan but, as yet, have not been spectroscopically analyzed to determine if they came from wares produced by Piercy family potters in Philadelphia or Alexandria.
The pan is restored.
The most comprehensive discussion of Piercy to date is “The Pottery of Henry Piercy”, Magid and Means, Ceramics in America, Robert Hunter, ed. 2003 and is the source of most of the information above.
