1793
Dish
Artist/maker unknownPennsylvania 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."
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