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 multi[)le- 

 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 compass-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 \ine 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-tassel 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 orna- 

 ments, which also occur in Hispanic majolica, have 



Figure 22. — Slip-coated porringers and drinking 

 bowl (center). Colonial National Historical Park. 



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 13^4 inches in 

 diameter and 4^5 inches high, was found at the 

 Coke-Garrett house site in Williamsburg, Virginia, 

 in a context attributed to the period about 1740- 

 1760. Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. (Colonial ]i'il- 

 liamsburg photo jg-D]V-yo;}~4^.) 



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 con- 

 nection between North Devon sgraffito-ware manu- 

 facture 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 

 tAvo other ceramic innovations elsewhere in England — 

 stoneware and majolica. 



Atvpic.m. Specimen 



.■Mready 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 

 Dc\on sgraffito ware thus far seen. It nevertheless 

 belongs to the same class. Its paste has the same 



PAPER 13: NORTH DEVON POTTERY IN 17TH-CENTURY .\MERICA 



43 



