POTTERY. 



POTTERY. 



i (till greater, the colour and glue of the Use Bunian much 

 Krwui come of the figure* the art appear* to hare bean con- 

 tinual U> the 4th century A.D. Some of the later ram are decorated 

 with relief ornaments A AoroodW, produced by squeezing the day 

 wbcn iui>t out of a pipe or spoon, and modelling it into the required 

 shape with a toot Van* of this ware hare also pattern! cut with a 

 harp toul out of the body of the rase, in imitation of the diatretum or 

 engraving on glata, The principal uts in Italy for celebrated ram 

 under the Empire were An-tiuui, Allir'.c in S.imnium, celebrated for 

 it* cup*, Pollentia, Surrentum, Modena and Rhegium, beside* those 

 already mentioned. A few raaea of lustrous black ware wen made by 

 the Romans, but the red Smjm or Roman ware seems to have been 

 succeeded by a glased black ware, probably as early as the 3rd century 

 in Qaul and Britain, made by the native potters. These rases are of 

 rarious pastes, made by the wheel, but often decorated with subjects 

 ) iarfofiW, consisting of gladiators or hunting scenes and ornaments 

 punctured in or incited. The principal sites of the fabric were at 

 Castor and the Upchurch marshes near Sheerness, and at Crockhill 

 in the New Forest ; the paste of this last is made of a dark gray clay, 

 and the surface covered with an alkaline maroon glaze ; the Castor ware 

 was made of a gray clay, and the external colour is supposed to hare been 

 produced by condensing the smoke of the kiln on the rases while baking ; 

 the Upchurch ware is made of the London clay with an external black 

 gbutc or polish, that found at Crockhill was made of a local blue clay 

 covered with an alkaline maroon glaze. Small rases, principally 

 drinking cups, with corrugated sides, were made of this ware. Similar 

 wares, but occasionally impressed with the names of potters in relief, 

 have been found in Prance and Germany ; and a black glazed ware with 

 a red paste, having in slip of pipe clay such expressions as AVK 

 hail, BIBE drink, DA VIXVM give wine, in the shape of jugs and bottles, 

 and perhaps as late as the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. Besides these 

 imperfectly glaxed rases of a tender lustrous pottery, the fabric of 

 an enamelled or glazed terra cotta, covered with a thick siliceous glaze, 

 in some instances produced by hand, seems to hare been handed down 

 in Egypt, and the products in the shape of lamps and jugs imported 

 from Alexandria throughout the lioman world, a fact important to bo 

 remembered in the history of the revival of glazed ware in "modern 

 Europe. 



The aboriginal natives of northern Europe, the Celtic, and Teutonic, 

 and Scandinavian races, had from the earliest period a rude pottery, 

 consisting of coarse ressels of clay, of rude construction, with open 

 mouths, thick walls, made of a paste of clay mingled with small pebbles, 

 snd imperfectly baked in rude furnaces by means of wood, straw, 

 or weeds. This ware, more or less brown or gray, is found in the 

 lowest stratas of human remains, the tumuli of the races which used 

 stone and bronze weapons, and in the oldest cromlechs. It was not 

 made on the wheel, but fashioned by the hand ; and the ornaments 

 imitate the rude tattooing of the natives, and the decorations of their 

 jewels, consisting of hatched bands, chevrons, zones, and other designs, 

 either impressed by twigs or rushes. These rases, known to the 

 Romans as bcucaudce, or baskets, and imported to Rome, hold the ashes 

 of the dead ; some few ore of small size, and all appear to have been 

 employed for household purposes. They exhibit great local differences, 

 and some of the most remarkable are those in shape of ancient houses 

 found at Chemnitz in Thiiringen, at Roenne, in the isle of Bernholm, 

 and at Parchim. These native wares appear to have never been 

 entirely superseded by the Roman wares amongst the Northern races ; 

 and the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians and Gauls, under 

 the first dynasty, manufactured a kind of ware of a dark paste, imper- 

 fectly baked, or even sun-dried, and in the shape of jars, ornamented 

 with impressions from bone or wooden stamps, representing fleurettes, 

 crosses, triangles, and other ornaments, disposed in bands or rows 

 round the neck of the rases. The use of glass, horns, wooden cups, 

 and jugs of perishable materials, caused, however, the disuse of smaller 

 resrels of earthenware. After the fall of the Roman empire, the 

 working of terra cotta disappeared with the decline of the arts, and 

 only reappeared with their revival. Large and remarkable pieces, as 

 that of S. Antony, were executed, however, by Nicolo of Arezzo, in the 

 14th century, for his native town; and in the 15th, Simon made a 

 Magdalen of heroic size for Florence. Celebrated works of Mazzoni 

 Outdo Paganino of Modena, and Belsa of Florence, are still seen in tlmt 

 town, Venice, Ferrara, and Naples; and in Spain, in the 10th century, 

 Miguel made colossal statues of St. Paul and St. Peter, for the cathedral 

 of Seville ; and Germain I'illon, in France, at the close of the same 

 century, executed colossal religious works. During the 18th century, 

 however, only coarse figure* for gardens seem to Lav* been made of 

 this material. At the close, however, of the last ceutury, the art had 

 considerably revived, both for sculpture and architecture; and in 

 France, both Clodion and Mono executed works of merit in this material. 

 The application of terra cotta to buildings and sepulchres ha* had, 

 however, a greater extension, and the buildings of Toulouse, Dresden, 

 Berlin, and Munich, the churches and other edifices, are often enriched 

 with terra cotta reliefs and other ornaments. The use of bricks, which 

 it is scarcely possible to conceive can hare been entirely lost, is said to 

 bare been re-introduced into England by Alfred in the Uth century, 

 but according to the best authorities does not date earlier than the 

 14th century. 



The manufacture of a soft fine pottery, and of a coarse pottery un- 



gla*ed by plumbiferous or stanniferous glazes, seems to hare prerailed 

 all orcr the habitable globe. Great jar*, imitated from the am-i.-ut dolia, 

 are atill made in the Pur de Dome, in France ; near I 

 Spain, whir.- tiny ore called Imujai ; in Armenia, named tuupl>iiu* ; 

 by the Bushmen of Africa; the Javanese; the Cuaytokares, or old 

 Indian trilv of the Corroados, on the banks of tin Brazil, 



where they were employed to hold the bodies of the dead. Smaller 

 res* 11 Is of unglaxed earthenware, for common purposes, arc now made 

 all orcr KurojH'. ( tnc of the most extensive classes ar. .voters, 



a kind of bottle of porous clay, called alrani:: i in Spanish, alcaradia 

 in Portuguese. Spain is particularly celebrate*! lure, 



which is said to bare flourished aa early as A.D. 804, and they are still 

 made in Valencia and Andalusia. The principal Asia- 

 class is stated to be the fine red ware of Anatolia, that of i 

 yellowish white of Mecca, the red coffee-pots of lias in Yemen, the red 

 clay pipe bowls of Sana, the water bottles of white ware of Cora in 

 Persia. In India the character of the ware resembles in its type that 

 of China; Chandranagore, Pondichorry, and Kanial manufacture red 

 and brownish lamps for pagodas ; at Calcutta the ware is reddish brown 

 and micaceous. The pottery of Cochin China is fine, hard, light, and 

 turned ; of Manilla, white and turned, with another fabric introduced 

 by the Spaniards. Ceylon produces spheroidal rases, of a red paste ; 

 Jars, red turned pottery ; Sumatra, at Paleiubang, water coolers of a 

 pale reddish-brown ware. Manfaloot, in Egypt, makes great jars of 

 yellow clay for holding indigo, and ulaJt moyrabby, or v 

 coolers of Marocco, the :yr or common jars, and at Khennch .11 1 ].|-r 

 Egypt bardaclis or water coolers, of a thin yellowish ware, are ii 

 such abundance and so cheap as to be seldom used twice. Algiers and 

 Tunis produce a whitish pottery, thin and turned; and that of the 

 Nigritic tribes, in the centre of Africa, chiefly frum Kana, is eii 

 a pale reddish-brown with coatings of red or white colour, or else of a 

 black colour, feebly baked. At Madagascar the pottery is of an ashen 

 gray and micaceous paste, sometimes with black anthracite bands. 



The aboriginal pottery of America resembles in its general characters, 

 the rudeness of its type, ornamentation, and baking, that found in 

 other parts of the world. That found in the northern states, in the 

 tumuli at St. Louis, near the river Merrimac, in Ohio, in Louisiana, 

 Virginia, and Tennessee, has its paste often mixed with the shells of the 

 Myas anodonta, and is ornamented with lines and hatched marks. 

 These potteries are of the rudest kind ; those of the Toltec and Aztec 

 nations, which arc found in Mexico, show greater artistic merit, and 

 are principally of red ware, ornamented with native patterns in white 

 pipe-clay, sometimes modelled in various shapes, and decorated with 

 modelled ornaments of figures of deities and other objects, occasion- 

 ally covered with a siliceous glaze. In terra-cotta figures of deities the 

 natives particularly excelled, and have retained the art, modified by 

 Spanish influences, to the present day. In ilitla, I'alenque, and Copan, 

 many objects of various kinds, in terra cotta and soft pottery, have been 

 discovered. The pottery of Mexico at the present day is described as 

 peculiar, of a dirty white, pearl gray, reddish yellow, or black colour, 

 light, and sometimes reddened with ochre, never made by the win-el, 

 but decorated with ornaments of a black colour, and similar to that 

 of the Antilles and Martinique. The ancient potteries of South 

 America resemble in their general characteristics those of Mexico ; in 

 the hnacat, or tombs of the ancient inhabitants of Peru, especially those 

 near the Lake Titicaca, vases, principally water bottles, of a fine red 

 clay like the Greek, or a dark clay like the Etruscan ware, are found 

 in numbers ; they are light, alway.- nude by the hand, never by moulds 

 or the wheel, but often are modelled with considerable skill and taste 

 in shape of human heads, men, and animals, and decorated with orna- 

 ments resembling the Greek meanders, or with animals on the body, 

 and handles. Some resemble the Chinese, especially certain vases 

 with a gourd-shaped body and bifurcated necks; and many with double 

 mouths, when blown into by the mouth, give forth a whistling sound. 

 The potter's art was exercised by all tribes of the continent except the 

 natives of the Pampas. In Brazil the ware is of a red or black colour, 

 modelled in shape of fruit or animal*, and coated with an unctuous 

 varnish. The modern ware of Peru (hirers from the ancient, but still 

 retains a local character. At Lima and Callao a red pottery, covered 

 with an ochreous coating, and a blackish ware, all hand-made and 

 baked, is manufactured, along with a coarse red pottery at Italy. North 

 of Corrientes coarse black linajtu, iu imitation of the Spanish, are made. 

 The ware of Chili resembles that of Peru ; that of Paraguay is black. 



The Moors are supposed, on the conquest of Spain, A. LI. 711, to 

 have introduced into Europe the use of glazed tiles from Asia, similar 

 tiles having been found in the inosque at .Medina, A.D. 707, and in the 

 early churches of Pisa, Pavia, and Sicily ; but none of these tiles 

 aziiitjta, found in the Alhambra, appear to be earlier than A.D. 1300, 

 and are mode of a pale clay covered with a white enamel, on which a 

 ltteru has been stamped or painted in blue and brown, and covered 

 with a stanniferous glaze. Three clan Don of plates and other vessels of. 

 e enamelled with white or yellow ground, on which are shields 

 of the kings of Spain, cyphers, arabesques, and ornaments, are supposed 

 to have been made by .Moorish potters from the 13ih to the 15t.h century. 

 They are distinguished by the cupreous iridisceuce of the glaze. But 

 enamelled vessels, of a date even earlier, have b n found in Kngland, 

 either the works of English or foreign potters. The principal sites of 

 Spanish pottery were Talavera, Valencia, and Trafia in Audalucia. 



