Plate

Heinrich Roth

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pennsylvania German potters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, utilizing the locally available red clay, produced for a local market utilitarian earthenware pieces as well as more elaborate wares. These immigrant craftsmen brought skills and decorative traditions from their homeland. This plate from Northampton County exemplifies the sgraffito technique employed by many Pennsylvania Germans. The method involves coating the hardened clay with white slip and then scratching through the surface with a sharp tool to reveal the red layer beneath. This piece, like many of its kind, features a simplified peacock and floral motif.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art