Rare glazed red earthenware pitcher with mottled green glaze, Anthony Wise Baecher (1824-1889) Winchester, Virginia, 1870-1889

underside, stamped: BAECHER/WINCHESTER

Sotheby’s New York, January 16-17, 1999, lot 304

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p.160, fig. 126

The 1880 federal census records for Frederick County, Maryland, list Joseph E. Simons, from New Jersey, as the owner of a coach shop. In 1881 he and his wife, Mary, purchased a pottery operation along Big Hunting Creek near Mechanicstown that had been run by a potter named Jacob Lynn. Apparently investing on speculation and having no known training as a potter, Simons managed the pottery for approximately two years, using contracted labor supplied by a number of local master potters and apprentices. Among these potters was Anthony Wise Baecher (or Bacher), a potter who first apprenticed with his father in his Bavarian hometown of Falkenberg and, after immigrating, had apprenticeships in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Baecher had formed a partnership with Lynn in the pottery prior to the Simonses' purchase, and Lynn was an investor in an earlier pottery founded by Baecher about 1868- 1870 in Winchester, Virginia. Baecher, one of the most skilled Germanic potters in the Shenandoah Valley, retained a regular and active interest in the Maryland pottery with Lynn until about 1880, when he began to focus more attention on his larger operation in Winchester.¹

While several examples produced at the Big Hunting Creek Pottery bear the stamp of J.E. Simons, the techniques of molded and applied decorations incorporated in many of those examples, such as this sugar bowl with cover, are the same as those developed and perfected by Baecher. A virtually identical sugar bowl whose cover has a hand-molded and applied feeding bird finial and applied leaf decoration, bears the impressed mark "BAECHER, WINCHESTER" on its bottom.² Both Germanic and English traditional potters employed these decorative "sprigged" appliques, hand-sculpted or hand-molded decorations formed separately from the main body of the vessel and secured to the surface with liquid slip while in the wet, unfired state. Most of Baecher's figural works and sculptural appliques were hand-modeled and show little evidence of the use of molds or casting. His work, which later influenced that of the Bell and the Eberley potting families of the region, demonstrates the popularity and enduring nature of these traditional techniques and the shared influences and talents of these inspired regional potters.

The simple pitcher and the whimsical figure of a seated goat suggest Baecher's range, which stretched from ornamental umbrella stands, birdhouses, animal figures, and other decorative pieces to utilitarian household wares such as crocks, milk pans, and table articles. His colorful, mottled slip and glazed decoration, usually combining opaque yellow, greens, and browns, influenced the whole tradition of ceramics in the valley. Inventive and self-reliant, Baecher improved upon the standard potter's wheel of the period, which usually required the potter to stand before the rotating wheel. Baecher fitted his shop wheel with what was described by his son as a comfortable saddle, similar to that for a horse, which could be raised or lowered for position and comfort.³

Some of Baecher's earliest signed works bear a script signature or are marked with a stamp using the original Germanic spelling of his name, "Bacher." These may indicate his tenure of production while in Maryland or during the initial phase of his activities in Winchester. He retained the script signature on many of his larger custom commissions but seems to have adopted the anglicized spelling "Baecher" in his later mark, as is seen on these examples. -J.L.L.

¹ For a detailed discussion of Baecher and his connection to Lynn and Simons, see Rice and Stoudt, Shenandoah Pottery, chap. 9.
² Collection Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich.; see Wiltshire, Shenandoah Valley, pp. 108-9.
³ Rice and Stoudt, Shenandoah Pottery.