Jack Troy on wed 13 aug 97
I happened to be in the Ephrata, PA area yesterday and stopped in at Horst's
Auction Center to ogle the items from a 19th century institution called the Snow
Hill Nunnery, an offshoot of the Ephrata Cloister. The last member died 102
years ago; the entire contents of the place had been closed up in the meantime,
and all of it went on the block, beds, chairs, furniture, coverlets, and 40
matching redware serving bowls, about 12" across and 3" deep. They were
slip-decorated in white, and green, lead-glazed inside; unglazed outside. They
were quite nice, but certainly not exceptional, as such pieces go. I thought
they might bring $800-$1,000 each, and was amused when the opening bid on the
first one was $2,000, with the winning bid at $15,500. I could only stay an
hour or so, and during that time the cheapest bowl from the set brought $5,500,
with the average bringing around 10K.
Pound for pound, that must have been some of the most expensive redware ever
sold at auction. The potter who made them could probably have bought each farm
adjacent to his with the money from the sale of just one bowl if such a
science-fiction transaction were possible.
Jack Troy
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