11/05/2025
Opening this Saturday, November 8!
Historic Trappe is thrilled to host a landmark exhibition celebrating the art of Pennsylvania German redware. Drawn from numerous private collections as well as several museums, the exhibit features the work of a wide range of potters, beginning with a focus on Georg Hubener as one of the earliest and best known of all Pennsylvania German redware potters. Hubener worked for only a short period of time, 1785 to 1792, in Upper Hanover and Limerick Townships, before moving out of Montgomery County and becoming a miller. Only eleven plates and two jars are known by his hand; Historic Trappe owns the only signed plate made by Hubener as well as the only known signed plate by his contemporary, Johannes Neis.
The work of Neis and David Spinner are also featured in the exhibit; they lived on the border of Bucks and Montgomery Counties and are best known for making sgraffito plates featuring men on horseback and other Revolutionary War-inspired imagery. Potters Jacob Medinger and Mildred Keyser, both of Montgomery County, are also included to document the continuation of Pennsylvania German pottery traditions well into the 1900s.
From Hubener to Medinger: Redware Potters of Southeastern Pennsylvania is on view at the Center for Pennsylvania German Studies at the Dewees Tavern from November 8, 2025, through March 29, 2026. Lead support for this exhibition is provided by Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates-Catalogued Auctions with additional support by the American Folk Art Society, Steve and Susan Babinsky, Robert and Katharine Booth, Pook & Pook, Inc., Auctions and Appraisals, Limerick Township Historical Society, and Holly Adams Cairns.
