Dish/Pan
Slip Glaze Decoration
North Carolina, Probably Salem
Early 19th Century
15.5″ diameter
Moravian redware is among the most sought after of southern ceramics. The pottery produced by Gottfried Aust and his successors in the Salem settlement set high standards for quality and was highly influential regionally.
This important redware pan is very similar in form and decoration to a 12″ bowl formerly in the collection of North Carolina dealer Nancy Conover found in Salem c. 1974 that was sold at Crocker Farm Auction in 2017. (See Crocker Farm images below.) The alternating light and dark slip swags and dot/dash motifs on the bowls’ shoulders suggest that they were decorated by the same shop. Also pointing to a Salem attribution are shards found at the Rudolph Crist pottery site in Bethabara that have a central design that is very similar to our example. See fig. 56 below from Ceramics in America, 2009.
Another plate in the collection of the Mint Museum attributed to Gottfried Aust (H1983.190.137) while much earlier has shoulder decorations that presage the central floral design in our example and demonstrate the continued influence of Aust on redware well into the nineteenth century.
