360 



POTTKKIKS 



POTTERY 



beat pictures are pastoral scenes with animal 

 figure*, the life-size YOUIIJI Hull' (1IM7, at the 

 Hague) lieing especially celebrated. HU 'Dairy 

 Farm,' BMMHriBfl only l!i by 48J inches, wan sold 

 in London on 27th June 1890 from the Stover 

 collection for 6090, or 13 l>er square inch. The 

 Kijks Museum at AiiiHtriluiii iiOHsesses the ' Bear- 

 hunt' and seven other pictures from his easel. 

 \ fry many of his productions are preserved in 

 England. 



See P. Potter, ta Vu et K* (Sum*. l>y Van West- 

 rhct-ne (the Hague, 1867), and C'uiuUU, Landtcayt 

 J'ainteri of Holland ( ' Gn-at A rtiU ' leriet, 1891 ). 



Potteries THE, a district in North Stafford- 

 shire, '.' miles long )>y 3 broad, the centre of the 

 earthenware manufacture in England, includes 

 Hanley, Bundem, Stoke-upon-Trent, Newcastle- 

 under- Lyme, Tunstall, and other towns. 



Pottery. This term, derived through the 

 French jwterie from the Latin potum, 'a drinking 

 vessel,' is applied to all objects of baked clay. 

 Pottery may be said to lie almost contemporaneous 

 and co-extensive with mankind ; it is found with 

 the remains of our remotest ancestors, and it is 

 fashioned amongst the rudest of present day tribes. 

 The art in its rudimentary condition merely 

 moulding wet clay into the desired form, and sub- 

 mitting it to the hardening heat of the sun or of 

 fire is so simple as to lie within the capacity of 

 the least tutored savage. The universality of the 

 primitive art, and the many different lines along 

 which it progressed, preclude the possibility of 

 tracing its history in chronological sequence, and 

 only a few of its more important developments can 

 be noticed in the historical section. 



Pottery as known at the present day is distin- 

 guished into many classes according to the nature 

 and purity of the clay employed, the heat to which 

 it has been exposed in firing, the glazes or enamels 

 with which it has been covered, and the coloured 

 or other ornamental treatment of its surface. 

 Briefly, as regards material and baking it may be 

 divided into (1) earthenware, which, exposed to a 

 comparatively low heat, remains earthy in texture 

 and can be scratched with a steel point ; (2) stone- 

 ware, fired at a high heat, hard, dense, compact, 

 and not scratched by the knife ; and (3) porcelain, 

 fired at the highest temperature, semi-fused and 

 vitreous in structure, and, when sufficiently thin, 

 translucent. Earthenware again may lie sub- 

 divided according to the manner in which ite 

 surface is treated, lieing either ( 1 ) plain, as 

 in an ordinary flowerpot ; (2) lustred, as in the 

 black sui fared jxittery of ancient Greece; (3) 

 glazed or coated with a transparent glass or var- 

 nish : and (4) enamelled or coated with an opaque 

 white or colnurwl glass, which completely conceals 

 tin- Uidy over which it is spread. 



Miiinifiirtnre. The dough-like condition into 

 which clay ran IK- worked with water, and the 

 hardness and indestructibility it acquires by burn- 

 ing, are the qualities iinon which the (Hitter's art 

 essentially depends. Clay is one of the m~t 

 abundant of substances, hut it is of many qualities 

 and degrees of purity. The commonest drick clays 

 are so coarse in texture and so impregnate! with 

 iron and other foreign ingredient* that they win lie 

 used only for bricks, tiles, and the very coarsest 

 kinds of pottery- The purest potters' clay, known 

 as china-clay or Kaolin (q.v.), is formed liv the de- 

 eomjXMttfaa of granitic rocks. It consists essenti- 

 ally of the hyd rated silicate of alumina with small 

 proportions or traces of one or more of lime, potash, 

 soda, and magnesia. The linest china clay of (ireat 

 Britain is found in Cornwall, where it' was dis- 

 covered at Carclaze, 2 miles NK. of St Atistell, he- 

 tween 1755 and 1758 by William Cookworthy. 



Cookworthy's discover,- was of the utmost import- 

 ance for the home manufacture of porcelain ami fine 

 pottery; and the development of the industry 

 which took place under Joniah \Ycdgwood and 

 others was due in no small measure to the' line 

 material which thus became available to them. 

 Commoner potters' clay or pipeclay is obtained 

 principally from Pooh- in Dorsetshire. The mate- 

 rials used for the paste or body of typical van. 

 of porcelain and pottery are as follow*. : ( 1 ) 1'one- 

 lam. At Sevres, kaolin, 48 parts; sand (pun- 

 white), 48 parts; chalk, 4 part*. At Dresden, 

 kaolin. 62 parts; felspar, 26 parts ; broken biscuit- 

 porcelain, 2 parts. At Berlin, kaolin, 76 \>nn- . 

 felspar, 24 parts. In England three mixtures are 

 lined : for common china, ground Hints, 75 parts ; 

 calcined bones, 180 parts; china-clay, 40 parts; 

 clay, 70 parts. For tine china, ground Hints, 66- 

 pan-; calcined bones, 100 parts; china-clay, 96- 

 parts; Cornish granite, 80 parts. Fine, for model- 

 ling figures, &c., Lynn sand, 150 parts; calcined 

 bones, 300 parts ; china-clay, 100 parts ; potash, 

 107 parts. The glazes require to lie varied for 

 nearly all, so that their fusibility may lie greater 

 or less, according to the more or less 'fusible char- 

 acter of the biscuit ingredienU. (2) atom / 

 such as is used for jars, bottles, drain-pipes, iVe., 

 is made of several kinds of plastic clay, mixed with 

 felspar and sand, and occasionally a little lime, but 

 the materials vary much in different localities. 

 (3) Earthenware, called also Faience or Iirlff, is 

 made of various kinds of clay, varying in colour 

 from yellow to white, according to the quality 

 required ; and more or less of powdered calcined 

 flints are mixed with it, to give it body and hard- 

 ness. Sometimes, as in porous vessels, only clay is, 

 used. 



The use of calcined flint was first adopted by a 

 Burslem potter named John Astlmry, who in 1720 

 noticed the fine white character of a powder applied 

 to the eyes of his horse for the cure of some ailment. 

 He learned that the powder was made from calcined 

 flint, and thereon he conceived the idea of using it 

 in his pottery ; and did so with great success. The 

 ingredients, such as the clay and calcined flints, 

 are prepared by separate means, the former in 

 the pug-mill, which 

 is represented in 

 fig. 1. This is an 

 upright, iron-bound, 

 wooden cylinder, with 

 an axis, A, turned by 

 machinery ; project- 

 ing from A are seven 

 arms, b, each of which 

 has three knives fixed 

 in it, with the points 

 outward, and so 

 arranged that they 

 spread over the 

 t amount of 

 space in' the interior; 

 and altogether they 

 are placed in a spiral 

 manner, so that when 

 in motion the clay, 

 which is thrown in 

 lumps into the hop- 

 per shaped upper part of the vat, is worked down, 

 and is so cut and kneaded by the knives that it is 

 forced out at an opening at C in the state of soft 

 pnp. This is aided by the knives on the lower 

 part of the lowest arm being connected together 

 tiy a plate, I '. which prevents all settlement at the 

 bottom. This pap like clay passes into a large 

 wooden tank, in which it is agitated with water 

 until quite inrorjHirated, so as to resemble milk in 

 colour and consistency. In another mill (fig. 2), ot 



