In the mid-1700s, members of the protestant Moravian church—named after the region in central Europe where the church was founded—established settlements in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. In present-day Winston-Salem, Gottfried Aust founded a successful pottery works that produced lead-glazed wares, decorative plates, and press-molded figures. Aided by apprentices and enslaved people, master potters like Aust operated the kilns under the close monitoring of church authorities, who often promoted the use of religious symbolism. The anemones represented on this charger, for example, refer to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, whose blood is said to have caused these flowers to bloom.