Images(5)

Pitcher

Date1873-1874

Artist/Maker Isaac Good, Zigler Pottery

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Timberville

MediumLead-glazed earthenware

Dimensions10 3/4 x 8 x 6"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1994.900.1

DescriptionBaluster-shaped vessel with slightly tapered collar having a molded rim, strap handle, and decorated all over with mottled, randomly applied manganese.
Label TextTalented potters working in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley who were either unable to establish their own potteries or chose not to, could find temporary or long-term work at established local potteries. Isaac Good, who apprenticed as a potter in Rockingham County, VA, came from a family of potters which included his father, John P. Good (1819-1879), and a brother John. The three Goods worked at Emanuel Suter's (1833-1902) New Erection Pottery in Mt. Clinton intermittently between 1866 and 1890. Isaac Good also worked for Suter in 1891, the year that Suter first burned pottery at Harrisonburg after moving there from Mt. Clinton and forming the Harrisonburg Steam Pottery in 1890.

Good also worked at the Zigler Pottery in Timberville, Virginia, in 1873 and 1874. John Zigler (d. 1856) was a tanner who had moved in 1814 from Pennsylvania to Timberville where he operated a hemp mill. In 1830, he established the Zigler Pottery which is the earliest documented pottery in the Shenandoah Valley. It was during his tenure at the Zigler Pottery that Good made this pitcher. The form was popular among German-American potters in Pennsylvania and in Virginia, and the spontaneous use of slip glaze was used by other Valley potters, notably Emanuel Suter, Anthony Baecher, and members of the Bell family. But the controlled abandon with which Good applied the iron oxide or manganese decoration, contrasting areas of opacity and translucence, and combining drips, splashes, and splotches to create abstract patters, makes this common form particularly satisfying.
Markings"ISAAC GOOD" is stamped on the body below the spout
ProvenanceDescended in the Zigler family; M. Otto Zigler, Timberville, VA; R. E. Crawford Antiques, Manakin-Sabot, VA

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