Art in Clay: Masterworks of North Carolina Earthenware, organized by Old Salem Museums & Gardens, showcases nearly 200 objects made by Piedmont Potters which will be on view at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh through Sunday, September 1.
“For many years the Moravians who settled in what is now Forsyth County were credited with producing all of the slip-decorated ware made in the 18th and 19th centuries in the North Carolina backcountry,” said Johanna M. Brown, Director of Collections and Curator of Moravian Decorative Arts in Old Salem.
However, research of scholars and archaeologists working on the Art in Clay project has shown that while the Moravians were important contributors to the North Carolina earthenware tradition, other potters were significant as well. Both potters of Germanic descent, working in the St. Asaph’s district of what is now Alamance County (formerly part of Orange County), and Quaker potters working in Randolph County made equally significant contributions to this tradition.