North Devon Pottery and Its Export to America in the 17th Century Part 4

Color: Slipped surfaces are white where exposed without glaze. Unglazed surfaces are a dull terra cotta. The glaze varies in tone from honey color to a dark greenish amber. When applied over the slip, the glaze ranges from lemon to a toneless brown-yellow, or, at best, a sparkling b.u.t.ter color. When applied directly over the paste and over the incised and abraided designs, the glaze appears as a rich mahogany brown or dark amber.

FORMS

Plates, platters, and chargers:

(a) Diameter 7"-7-1/2". Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed.

(Fig. 12.)

(b) Diameter 12"; depth 2"-3". Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 11.)

(c) Diameter 14-1/2"-15"; depth 2"-3". Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 11.)

All have wide rims, but of varying widths, raised bezels, and heavy, raised, curved edges.

Bal.u.s.ter wine cups: Height 3-3/4"-4". Slipped and decorated externally; glazed internally and externally. (Figs. 12, 14.)

Concave-sided mugs: Height about 4". Slipped and decorated externally; glazed internally and externally. (Only complete specimen, at Jamestown, had incised band around rim.) (Fig. 14.)

Jugs: Height 6-1/2" and 8"-8-1/2". Globose bodies, vertical or slightly everted collars tooled in a series of ridged bands, with tooled rims at top. Some have pitcher lips, some do not. Slipped, decorated, and glazed externally above an incised line encircling the waist; glazed internally.

(Figs. 13, 14.)

Eating bowls: Diameter, including handle, 9"-10"; depth 3-1/4"-4".

Straight, everted sides, flat rims, with slightly raised edges, one small flat loop handle secured to rim. Slipped, decorated, and glazed internally and on rim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 21.--Gravel-tempered baking pan from Jamestown.

Length, 15 inches; width, about 12 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.]

Chamber pots: Height 5-1/2". Curving sides, terminating at heavy, raised, rounded band surmounted by concave, everted rim. Rim 1" wide and flat.

Slipped, decorated, and glazed externally and internally. (Fig. 15.)

Candlestick: Unique specimen. Height 6". Bell-shaped base with f.l.a.n.g.e and shaft above with socket at top. Handle from bottom of socket to bottom of shaft. Upper portion slipped, decorated, and glazed.

Ripple-edged, shallow dish: Unique specimen. Diameter 9-1/4". Concave, rimless dish or plate with edge crimped as for a pie or tart plate. Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed.

DECORATION

Technique: (1) Incising through wet slip into paste with pointed tool for linear effects. (2) Excising of small areas to reveal paste and to strengthen tonal qualities of designs. (3) Incising with multiple-pointed tools having three to five points, to draw multiple-lined stripes. (4) Stippling with same tools.

Motifs: The motifs are varied and never occur in any one combination more than once. There are two general categories of design, geometric and floral, although in some cases these are joined in the same specimen.

In the geometric category, the majority of plate rims are decorated with hastily drawn spirals and _guilloches_. The centers may have circles within squares, circles enclosing compa.s.s-drawn petals, circles within a series of swags embellished with lines. Triple-lined chevrons decorate the border of one plate. A chamber pot is decorated with diagonal stripes of multiple lines, between which wavy lines are punctuated by small excised rectangles. Some cups, jugs, and the candlestick are simply decorated with vertical stripes, between which are wavy lines, stippling, and excised blocks.

The floral category includes elaborate and intricate stylized floral and vine motifs: tulips, sunflowers, leaves, tendrils, hearts, four-petaled flowers. One plate (fig. 11) combines the geometric feeling of the first category with the floral qualities of the second in its swag-and-ta.s.sel rim and swagged band, which encloses a sunflower springing from a stalk between two leaves.

The design motifs are unique in comparison with those found on other English pottery of the 17th century. The geometrical patterns and spiral ornaments, which also occur in Hispanic majolica, have a Moorish flavor.

Christian symbols--especially tulips, sunflowers, and hearts--are recurrent, as they are on contemporary West-of-England furniture, pewter, and embroidery and on the carved chests, and crewel work of Puritan New England. There is considerable reason to believe that there was a connection between North Devon sgraffito-ware manufacture and design on the one hand and the influx of Huguenot and Netherlands Protestant artisans into southern and southwestern England on the other. Low Country immigrant potters were responsible for two other ceramic innovations elsewhere in England--stoneware and majolica.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 22.--Slip-coated porringers and drinking bowl (center). Colonial National Historical Park.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 23.--North Devon gravel-tempered pan with typical terra cotta paste and characteristic 18th-century flattened rim, slightly undercut on the interior. This pan, measuring 13-1/4 inches in diameter and 4-3/8 inches high, was found at the c.o.ke-Garrett house site in Williamsburg, Virginia, in a context attributed to the period about 1740-1760. Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. (_Colonial Williamsburg photo 59-DW-703-44._)]

ATYPICAL SPECIMEN

Already mentioned is a large fragment of a dish found in a context not later than 1640 and cruder and simpler in treatment than the remainder of North Devon sgraffito ware thus far seen. It nevertheless belongs to the same cla.s.s. Its paste has the same characteristics of color and fracture, while the firing has left the same tell-tale gray core found in a large proportion of North Devon sherds. Surface treatment techniques match those reflected in the typical dish sherds--glazed slip over the red paste on the interior; unglazed, sc.r.a.ped, and abraided surfaces on the underside.

The yellow color is paler and the glazed surface is duller. The rim has a smaller edge and omits the heavy raised bezel usually occurring on the typical plates and chargers. The design motifs--crude and primitive in comparison with those described above--consist of a series of stripes on the rim, drawn at right angles to the edge with a four-pointed tool, and crude hook-like ornaments traced with the same tool in the bowl of the plate. This may be regarded as a forerunner of the developed sgraffito ware made in the second half of the 17th century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 24.--Gravel-tempered pan sherds from Kecoughtan site, Hampton, Virginia. United States National Museum.]

UNIQUE FEATURE

The flat rim of a chamber pot from Jamestown (fig. 15) has "WR 16 .."

scratched through the slip. It is probable that the initials indicate "William Rex," for William III, who became king in 1688. Why the king should be memorialized in such an undignified fas.h.i.+on could be explained by the fact that Barnstaple and Bideford were strongly Puritan and also Huguenot centers. Although William was a popular monarch, he was, nevertheless, head of the Church of England, and an anti-royalist, Calvinist potter might well have expressed an earthy contempt in this way.

Later, in the 18th century, George III appears to have been treated with similar disrespect by Staffords.h.i.+re potters, who made saltglazed chamber pots in the style of Rhenish Westerwald drinking jugs, flaunting "GR"

emblems on the sides. Owners' initials or names do not occur on any of the North Devon wares found in American sites, nor do the initials of the potters. Otherwise, it would seem unlikely that the only exception would appear on the rim of a chamber pot.

COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE

Sherds owned by C. H. Brannam, Ltd., and excavated at the site of the Litchdon Street pottery in Barnstaple.--The largest of these is part of a deep dish (fig. 2). Its border design seems to be a degenerate form of a beetle-like device found on Portuguese majolica of the period. From a crude oval with a stippled line running the length of it, extends a spiral scroll, terminating in a heavy dot, reminiscent of the tendrils found on the Portuguese examples. From incised lines near the rim and on the edge of the bezel are small linear "hooks." The interior has sunflower petals flanking a short, stylized palmette, with another stalk and pair of leaves above, reaching up to what may have been an elaborate floral center, now missing. This decoration resembles closely the interiors of the floral-type plates and chargers found at Jamestown. A section of plate rim is similar to typical rims found in American sites. The surface color is the b.u.t.ter yellow found on the best Jamestown pieces. Paste color also matches.

Sherds from the North Walk pottery in Barnstaple, described by Charbonnier.--These were found near the site, on the banks of the Yeo and in a pasture. They include plates and dishes, some finished and others thrown out in the biscuit state. Charbonnier ill.u.s.trates a plate with a zig-zag or chevron border and an incised bird in the center. The chevron appears on Jamestown specimens but the bird does not.

Harvest jugs.--18th-century North Devon harvest jugs examined by the writer display the same characteristics of paste, slip, and glaze as the Jamestown sherds. However, the jugs differ stylistically to a marked degree, suggesting that later potters were not affected by the influences that appear in the earlier work (fig. 16). The earliest harvest jug of which we are aware is a hitherto unrecorded example, dated 1698, that is in the collection of Charles G. Dorman. This is the only harvest jug yet encountered with a history of use in America and the only North Devon sgraffito piece known to have survived above ground on this continent. It is a remarkably vigorous pot, having a great rotund body, a high flaring collar, and a lengthy inscription (see fig. 17). A female figure under a wreath of pomegranates forms the central motif. The head is turned in left profile, with hair cascading to the shoulders. The bust is highly stylized in an oval shape, within which are intersecting curved lines forming areas decorated with diagonal incising or with rows of short dashes. The design here is strongly reminiscent of the geometrical decoration on Jamestown plates and deep dishes. A pair of unicorns flanks the central figure, and behind each unicorn are a dove and swan, at left and right respectively. Under these are sunflowers and tulips, while a tulip stands above rows of leaves on a stem below the handle. Feather-like leaves flank the lower attachment of the handle. At the junction of the shoulder and collar is a narrow band of incised tulips. Above this is a heavy ridge from which springs the flaring collar. Under the spout is a male head, wearing a wig which is depicted in the same manner as the pomegranates on the wreath, and a stylized hat and stock-like collar. One suspects that the man is a clergyman, although his eyes are cast down in a most worldly manner upon the lady below. He is flanked by a pair of doves; behind each dove is a vertical tulip with stem and leaves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 25.--Gravel-tempered food-storage jar from Townsend site, Lewes, Delaware. Height, 12 inches; diameter at base, 9 inches.

(_USNM 60.1188; Smithsonian photo 38821._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 26.--Gravel-tempered sherds from Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts: fragment of oven (left) and rim sherd (upper right), from John Howland house site; and pan-rim sherd from "R. M." site. Plimoth Plantation, Inc., Plymouth. (_Smithsonian photo 45008-B._)]

Some of the shading is applied with a four-pointed tool, as in many of the Jamestown pieces, although the tool was smaller. The handle bears the same characteristics as those on jugs found at Jamestown--the same carelessly formed ridge, the same spreading, up-thrust reinforcement at the base of the handle. Unlike the Jamestown jugs, this one is covered completely on the exterior with slip and glaze. However, since this was a presentation piece, we could expect more careful treatment than was usual on pots made for commercial sale.

The jug descended in a Suss.e.x County, Delaware, family--on the distaff side, curiously. Family recollection traces its owners.h.i.+p back to the early 19th century, with an unsubstantiated legend that it was used by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. We may conclude at least that the jug is not a recent import and surmise that it was probably brought to America as an heirloom by an emigrating Devon family, perhaps before the Revolution. Suss.e.x County has a stable population, mostly of old-stock English descent. It was settled during the second half of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. There is a strong possibility, therefore, that the jug was introduced into Delaware at a comparatively early date.

Many other harvest jugs have been similarly cherished in England. An almost exact counterpart of the Delaware jug, and obviously by the same potter, is in the Glaisher collection in Cambridge. This jug, dated "1703/4,"[69] displays such variations as absence of the male head and a different inscription. Another jug, with a hunting scene but with a similar neck and collar treatment, seems again to be by the same hand; it is dated "1703."[70]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 27.--Gravel-tempered sherds from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland. United States National Museum.

(_Smithsonian photo 45008-A._)]