Translated from German, the inscription around the edge of this dish reads, “I have ridden over hill and dale and everywhere found pretty girls.” One might imagine these as the words of the figure at center, riding a horse and holding a sword in one hand and a trumpet in the other. Potter Johannes Neesz carefully engraved this whimsical scene using a technique known as sgraffito, from the Italian word for scratched. Neesz and his contemporaries working in Southeastern Pennsylvania often used this technique.