Horezu pottery (Romania)

I bought this small earthenware pin dish in England some time in the 1990s from a friend who travelled in Romania and was raising money for good causes back there. The clear glaze is flaking and poor quality showing they were having trouble accessing good quality raw materials at the time. Horezu pottery is traditional to the area and the maker's name, Iorga, comes from one of the well-known pottery making families. More here Horezu ceramic wiki

Slip-trail decorated earthenware dish

I've seen a few of these listed as 18th Century slipware on ebay.

Teehee

I saw this at a boot sale about 5 years ago. I picked it up and examined it for several minutes before putting it down because I had spent all my money on something else. I went home and found, in the following week, that I couldn't stop thinking about it so that weekend I went to the boot sale again but the seller was not there; nor was he the following week nor the week after that. I was resigned to the fact that I would never see it again when he turned up one weekend and, after searching all his stuff, I found it at the bottom of a box full of other pots and cloths etc. I picked it up again and knew immediately that we were meant to be together so asked how much it was. £1 bought me this Troyan Plate, signed on the back in Bulgarian, with more decoration on the front than anything I had ever seen before. The incredible intricacy of the slip work reaches almost fractal heights in places with the flourishes disappearing into each other seemingly ad infinitum. Certainly the most decorative work per pound that I have ever bought.
Lots of small terracotta jugs and plates turn up at boot sales which are made in a similar way but items with this amount of work are less common and worth a second look I reckon.

Bulgarian slipware tends to use a lot darker colours - usually black, brick-red and green. This looks to be the style of slipware made by the potter Ioana Mischiu who is based in Horezu, Vâlcea, Romania. You will probably find her signature on the reverse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2nKj2fKfo

Yes, I think you are right. I thought it was Bulgarian script on the back but I was holding it upside down. Obvious now you mention it......

...also, it has that strange effect that those 3D pictures have that you stare at slightly out of focus. Stare at it long enough and it becomes a gigantic lemon-squeezer;I tell you, it damn nearly took my eye out!

I've posted some photos of my Troyan pottery in the thread for European Pottery (I think) and Naomi is right. I also have a Romanian slip ware plate and it has these same paler colours