Sgraffito Plate with Horse and Rider18051 3/4 × 12 3/8" diam.Glazed red earthenwareGift of Ralph Esmerian2013.1.260Redware plate with curved circumference covered in yellow slip with colored slip sgraffito decoration of man with trumpet and raised sword riding horse. Floral surround.1547353779P1.2001.132John NeisContainersThe American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain.Around circumference incised in slip: Teh bin geriffen vil Flint und oaB Doch nuch rein metofhaben mag lo 1805
"I have ridden many days and hours/And still no girl comes into my powers"http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24455United StatesPennsylvaniaThree Dimensional WorkseMuseum - Collection HighlightsBarber, p142: "I have ridden many hours and days and yet no girl am able to have (no girl will have me)"
Robert Bishop and Jacqueline Marx Atkins, Folk Art in American Life (New York: Viking Studio Books, 1995), p. 91, fig 124.A number of fine sgraffito-decorated plates similar to this example depicting a galloping horse and rider and with floral or verse-inscribed borders survive from the pottery of John (or Johannes) Neis. Several potters with similar names, some with close family ties, worked in the area of Rockhill and Salford Townships in Bucks and Montgomery Counties during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the nature of surviving records and fluctuations in the spelling of their names have confused their identities. The John Neis who created this plate was the son of Henry and Maria Elizabeth Neis of Salford Township; his uncles Abraham and Johannes Neis also were potters. John Neis is thought to have apprenticed with his uncles or with David Spinner, a potter of Swiss descent who was also employed by the elder Neises and whose work shows a close stylistic tie to this plate. John's sons Abraham and John followed in their father's and great-uncles' footsteps and became potters in Montgomery County, continuing operations in the area until the end of the nineteenth century.
Decorated earthenware plates with horse-and-rider motifs and banded inscriptions based on folk proverbs or humorous maxims are found in earlier German and Swiss pottery traditions. In Pennsylvania the pattern was maintained by immigrant potters, and rather than portraying a particular military figure, such as Emperor Joseph II or George Washington, the figure had likely become a generic, preferred motif. Civic celebrations and local militia exercises with mounted cavalry riders also could have provided inspiration for such figural portrayals. Many of the sgrafitto floral designs executed by Neis have the fluid, confident character of a metal engraving and utilize similar curved, finely scored parallel lines to delineate the petals of flowers, shading, or the turn of a leaf.
Jack L. Lindsey, "Sgraffito Plate with Horse and Rider," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 446.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orghttp://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24455http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24455http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24455P1.2001.13218051805 2013 1 26 A number of fine sgraffito-decorated plates similar to this example depicting a galloping horse and rider and with floral or verse-inscribed borders survive from the pottery of John (or Johannes) Neis. Several potters with similar names, some with close family ties, worked in the area of Rockhill and Salford Townships in Bucks and Montgomery Counties during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the nature of surviving records and fluctuations in the spelling of their names have confused their identities. The John Neis who created this plate was the son of Henry and Maria Elizabeth Neis of Salford Township; his uncles Abraham and Johannes Neis also were potters. John Neis is thought to have apprenticed with his uncles or with David Spinner, a potter of Swiss descent who was also employed by the elder Neises and whose work shows a close stylistic tie to this plate. John's sons Abraham and John followed in their father's and great-uncles' footsteps and became potters in Montgomery County, continuing operations in the area until the end of the nineteenth century.
Decorated earthenware plates with horse-and-rider motifs and banded inscriptions based on folk proverbs or humorous maxims are found in earlier German and Swiss pottery traditions. In Pennsylvania the pattern was maintained by immigrant potters, and rather than portraying a particular military figure, such as Emperor Joseph II or George Washington, the figure had likely become a generic, preferred motif. Civic celebrations and local militia exercises with mounted cavalry riders also could have provided inspiration for such figural portrayals. Many of the sgrafitto floral designs executed by Neis have the fluid, confident character of a metal engraving and utilize similar curved, finely scored parallel lines to delineate the petals of flowers, shading, or the turn of a leaf.
Jack L. Lindsey, "Sgraffito Plate with Horse and Rider," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 446.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org