Dish - Earthenware - Slipware Bird Bowl 1757

A rare and expressive document of eighteenth-century Lower Rhine folk culture, this lead-glazed earthenware dish exemplifies the vibrant tradition of regional slipware (Niederrheinische Irdenware). Thrown from local reddish-buff clay and coated in an even, light cream slip ground, the shallow circular form is anchored by a spirited central medallion featuring a long-tailed songbird perched atop a stylized acanthus-and-scroll spray. The motif is executed in brush-applied iron-red and copper-green slip, framed within concentric annular bands. Along the broad, sloping rim, a dark brown trailed-slip inscription in Early New High German cursive reads „gott allain die ehr sonst nit ein mehr 1757“ (God alone the honor, otherwise to no one else), neatly punctuated by the date of manufacture. Such devotional mottos, expressing a steadfast Protestant or post-Reformation pietism, were frequently commissioned for domestic milestones or marriage celebrations across the Lower Rhine basin between the Meuse and the Rhine.

Recovered as an excavation find, the earthenware body displays cleanly aligned and stabilized fracture lines extending across the well and rim, accompanied by localized fills and consolidations. The surface preserves the color saturation, graphic vigour, and calligraphic clarity of its slipwork.


PROVENANCE
Recovered during building excavations in Titz, Germany.
Property from the Estate of a German biologist and naturalist (1980s or 1990s).
Thence by descent to the present owner.