North Devon Sgraffito Earthenware

Defining Attributes

A yellow lead glazed coarse earthenware with a reddish pink to orange paste that can have a gray core. North Devon sgraffito ware is identified by its incised slip decoration of brown motifs on a yellow background. ftn1 A North Devon plain slip-coated variety has been found identified at Jamestown (Watkins 1960; Outlaw 2002) and on a few 17th-century sites in Maryland (Hornum et al. 2000; Davis et al. 1999), but could be indistinguishable from sgrafitto at the sherd level.

Chronology

Grant (1983:131-132) states that “by the early seventeenth century, plain and decorated slipwares were being made” in North Devon.  Sgraffito has been recovered in an early 1620s context at Martin’s Hundred in Virginia (Outlaw 2002), but on Maryland archaeological sites, North Devon sgraffito wares have so far dated to the second half of the 17th century.  North Devon slip decorated earthenware “reached its peak in the third quarter of the seventeenth century” (Outlaw 2002). Towards the end of the 17th century, North Devon sgrafitto was eclipsed by the growing preference for blue and white tablewares, such as the tin-glazed wares made in England and the Netherlands. Flatware vessel forms (dishes, plates) were no longer manufactured after about 1700, but harvest jugs continued to be made into the late 19th century (Grant 1983).  

Sgraffito wares are generally not found on archaeological sites after 1700 (Miller 1983; Grant 1983:13), but several matching and dated (1730) flatware pieces was found at the White Swan Tavern in Chestertown, Kent County Maryland, and may have been specially commissioned (Grant 1983:122).

Description

Fabric
Coarse earthenware body with a pink or reddish to orange colored paste that sometimes displays a gray core resulting from reduced oxygen during firing. On many thin-bodied North Devon slip and sgraffito sherds, the body is mostly to entirely gray, with only patches of red-orange. The paste is well mixed with a fine, smooth texture and contains very fine sand particles.  

Glaze
A white slip is applied to the sgraffito and plain slip-coated wares, and appears yellow below the thin lead glaze. Most vessels are glazed on just the interior.

Decoration
Sgraffito ftn2 is decorated by incised designs that cut through a white slip, exposing the reddish body below. The white slip appears yellow underneath the lead glaze, and the incised lines are brown. Design influences on North Devon sgraffito were based on pottery imported from Spain, Italy, Portugal and the Low Countries (Grant 1983). Motifs included geometric designs that incorporated spirals, zigzags and cross-hatched rims, as well as stylized floral patterns with tulips, sunflowers, roses, daisies, pomegranates, leaves and tendrils.  Hearts, animals, and people were also used, as were initials and dates, often added to presentation pieces such as chargers or posset pots.

Form
Wheel-thrown utilitarian or food consumption wares of nearly every conceivable form were manufactured, including dishes, plates, jugs, pitchers, storage jars, bowls, cooking pots, porringers, mugs, cups, chamber pots, posset pots and candlesticks.  By far the most common vessel observed on Chesapeake archaeological sites are the large dishes that archaeologists sometimes call chargers. Gravel-tempered handles, for extra strength, have been observed on sgraffito mugs and jugs in the May-Hartwell collection from Jamestown, Virginia (Outlaw 2002).

Table 1 was adapted from Alison Grant’s Appendix A (1983) and lists the most commonly found North Devon sgraffito earthenware vessel forms and physical traits generally associated with each. 

Table 1.  North Devon Sgraffito Earthenware Physical Attributes

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footnote
ftn1 Sgraffito decorated wares very similar to North Devon wares were being produced in other parts of southwest England, for example at Donyatt, during the same time period. The glazed surfaces of Donyatt vessels, which were produced largely for a local market, sometimes display green copper oxide patches (Grigsby 1993, 2000). Since no known examples of Donyatt sgraffito have been located in the MAC Lab collections, this essay will focus only on North Devon wares.

ftn2 There was also a tradition of using trailed slip on some coarse earthenwares produced in North Devon. This trailed slip decoration was used predominantly on hollow vessel forms, like chamberpots, mugs and jugs, but rarely on dishes (Grant 1983:61).

References

Davis et al. 1999; Grant 1983, Grigsby 1993, 2000; Hornum et al. 2001; Miller 1983; Outlaw 2002; Watkins 1960.

Notes

North Devon wares, manufactured throughout the 17th century, are distinctly identifiable. The extensive trade networks established by Bideford and Barnstaple merchants made this ware the most common utilitarian and dining wares in many areas of England, Ireland, the Chesapeake region, New England, and the Caribbean (Grant 1983). The utilitarian forms of this ware dominate many late 17th century sites, with North Devon gravel-tempered making up as much as 45% of some assemblages.