POTTERY. 



POTTERY. 



The custom of bringing home enamelled plates, bacini, by the 

 Crusaders, and the conquest of Majorca by the Pisans hi A.D. 1115, 

 introduced the tin glazes into Italy, which are supposed to have 

 been first used by Lucca della Robbia, A.D. 1415-1420, who made 

 scriptural subjects in high relief; and tiles of glazed ware, prin- 

 cipally white, although other colours, as yellow, blue, green, and 

 violet, were also used by him and his family till A.D. 1560. The 

 name of Majolica, from the island whence it had first come, and 

 of Raffaelle, from the great artist who supplied some of the designs, 

 has been given to this ware. The early kind from A.D. 1540 to 1560, 

 called mezzo, majolica, ornamented with arabesques, coats of arms, 

 busts, and portraits, is distinguished for the brilliancy of its colour 

 and the iridescence of its madreperla glaze, the ruby tint being peculiar 

 to the products of Pesaro and Gubbio, and supposed to have been 

 invented by Maestro Giorgio. The porcellana or finer ware subse- 

 quently introduced is remarkable for the excellence of its paintings 

 made from the designs by Raffaelle, Marc Antonio, and others, of 

 scriptural and classical subjects, in light but harmonious colours. The 

 ware decliced from 1560, and in 1574 the ducal establishment of 

 Urbino was suppressed, the art having been up to that period fostered 

 by the dukes of Urbino. This ware was introduced into Faenza, 

 Forli, and Rimini. The principal shapes are the piatti di pompa or 

 plates, but flasks and bottles for the ducal spezieria, and pilgrims' 

 bottles were also made. The subjects are often accompanied by 

 explanatory inscriptions, the objects, date of vase, and initial of the 

 potter, being generally placed on the back. The principal artists were 

 Maestro Cencio and Orazio Fontana. The ware continued to be pro- 

 duced in Italy at Naples, Castelli in the 16-17th century, and at 

 Siena, Savona, and Urbania, till the 18th century. 



The manufacture of Majolica was introduced into France by 

 Catherine de Medici, A.D. 1590, and flourished at Avignon, Nevere, 

 St. Cloud, and Rouen till the close of the 17th century ; but the ware 

 peculiar to France was that of Palissy, invented by the celebrated 

 potter of that name at Saintes, A.D. 1555, who from beholding an 

 enamelled cup of Majolica or Nuremberg, after many years of laborious 

 and unsuccessful experiments, made vases of a gray paste covered 

 with a hard enamel and painted with bright and varied colours, chiefly 

 cold in tone, and ornamented with fish, reptiles, flowers, and other 

 objects, moulded from nature, found in the vicinity of Paris. His 

 principal works were dishes, pieces rustiques, thus ornamented for 

 sideboards, stands or basins, tiles, dishes, and jugs ornamented with 

 religious and other subjects in relief. The art was continued by his 

 family, but with less taste and excellence. Besides the Palissy ware a 

 peculiar fayence called that of Henry II., consisting of a glazed hard 

 paste of pipe clay covered with a transparent glaze, appears to have 

 been made about that period in France. It is peculiar for sten- 

 cilled patterns of mixed colours, with a predominance of yellow 

 ochre, often with moulded figures, while encaustic tiles similar to those 

 made in England were manufactured in France in the 13th century, 

 and a glazed ware is supposed to have been made at Beauvais in the 

 14th century. 



In A.D. 1278 a glazed ware is said to have been made in Alsace ; and 

 in the 15th century Ratisbon, Landshutt, and Nuremberg produced 

 vessels with a green glaze. In A.D. 1503 Majolica ware was introduced 

 into Nuremberg, and flourished chiefly in Franconia till the 16th 

 century. Tiles of this ware were made till the middle of the 

 17th century ; the same kind of ware of coarse and bad paste was 

 made at Strasbourg and Frankenthal, and a very fine ware of this kind 

 was produced at Hochst, but the style was abandoned in the middle of 

 the 1 8th century for porcelain. At Cologne and Mansfield a fine clear 

 paste with thin enamel, and at Wagram, and in Hungary, majolica, was 

 manufactured. A fine enamelled ware is still said to be made at Pop- 

 plesheim. The German ware is very different from the French and 

 Italian in style and colour and shape, which are quaint and peculiar, 

 chiefly of floral designs: animals were often moulded for drinking 

 cups. In A.D. 1310, Delft in Holland is said to have manufactured 

 pottery, and during the 14th and 15th centuries produced vessels and 

 enamelled tiles. After the separation of Holland from Spain towards 

 the close of the 16th century, A.D. 1579, the potters copied with great 

 success the shapes, drawings, and glaze of Japanese porcelain, and pro- 

 duced an imitation of oriental, which from its thinness, lightness, and 

 cheapness commanded the European market till the beginning of the 

 18th century, but rapidly declined in the 19th, having been superseded 

 by the English. Chinese porcelain was also imported into Holland and 

 England. Like the French and Italian wares the Delft has the 

 initials or monogram of the potters placed on it In Holland and 

 Flanders also were manufactured in the 16th century jugs of stone 

 ware with a bearded head in relief on the neck and coats of arms on 

 the belly, nicknamed gray-beards or BeUarminea, in derision of the 

 Cardinal, and of a gray or mottled brown colour; and were made in 

 Holland and at Cologne, and a fine kind of tankard called Jacobus 

 Kannetje, of an unglazed yellowish paste, stamped with reliefs from 

 copper moulds, were fabricated on the lower Khine and in Holland by 

 the celebrated Jacqueline, Countess of Hainault, A.D. 1433. This 

 (tone ware was glazed by salt, and some of the blue vases are the 

 finest products of the German potteries, which flourished till the 

 beginning of the 17th century, and are known as the Flemish stone 



The earlier Anglo-Roman and Saxon vases of England appear to 

 have ceased prior to the Norman invasion, the Saxons having exten- 

 sively used horns, leather bottles, glass vases, and other materials ; 

 but the manufacture perhaps revived under the Plantagenets. The 

 earlier English pottery consists of encaustic tiles of red brick, with 

 relief, sunk or inlaid or laid on patterns, used only for religious edifices, 

 in the latter part or the 12th or beginning of the 13th century ; the 

 oldest ornamented with heraldic bearings or badges, those of 13th-15th, 

 with elegant foliage, and arranged in sets of single tiles of 4, 9, or 16 

 to the set, with heraldic bearings, mounted knights, grotesques, and 

 inscriptions, till they were superseded in the 16th century by Flanders 

 or gaily tiles of foreign manufacture. Tiles of all these classes have 

 been found in the principal old religious edifices of England, and 

 appear to have been made in potteries attached to the monasteries, 

 kilns having been discovered at Bawsey near Lynn, Droitwich, Malvern, 

 and Saredon, some built of semicircular arches separated from each 

 other by a massive pier. 



In manuscripts of the Norman period earthen vessels are represented, 

 and the crutki/n or crutke is mentioned as early as A.D. 1324, and 

 in works of the 14th century, the godet or godettc about the same 

 period, the costrcl or flask, hung by a strap to the side, and tt/gs or cups. 

 The accounts of the executors of Eleanor, wife of Edward I., mention 

 a payment for pitchers to Julinna the potter ; but her name appears to 

 be foreign, and it is uncertain whether they were not Flemish ; in 

 A.D. 1446, the accounts of Sir T. Howard contain orders for payment 

 to the potters of Horpesley for earthenware jugs, and so do those of 

 Edward IV., and in 1512 they were in use in the household of the 

 Earl of Northumberland, and continue to be mentioued till the 

 close of the 16th century. 



The existence of early English potteries has been proved by the 

 discoveries of moulds as old as Edward III., and of jugs, pitchers, 

 costrils, and other vessels at a depth, and under circumstances showing 

 that some must have existed as early as the llth century. They 

 are made of a coarse brittle brown paste, covered with a black or green 

 plumbiferous, or leaden glaze ; some of the most remarkable are wine 

 or water pitchers, moulded in the form of Norman knights of the time 

 of Henry II., or with heads of that of Edward II. This ware was 

 continued till the commencement of the 18th century, aud often has 

 dates in the 17th century ; a late pottery of it was at Wrotham. As 

 early as the beginning of the 17th century Dutch potters are said to 

 have established potteries of Delft ware at Fulham and Lambeth, and 

 wine pots dated 1642 and the following years, and other vessels of this 

 ware, are known till the close of the 17th century. Delft was made at 

 Liverpool about the same period, and at Lambeth till a late period, 

 but during these centuries, stone pots or BeUarmines, from Flanders, 

 were extensively imported, although this ware appears to have been 

 made in England at the time, while porcelain, mentioned as early in 

 France as 1370, in the reign of Charles le Bel, began to be imported 

 into England in the reign of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, in 1587, and 

 was later called China, and came from Venice ; a heavy duty was 

 laid upon it by Cromwell. But the chief seat of the English potteries 

 was in Staffordshire, at Burslem, where coarse culinary vessels of red, 

 brown, and mottled pottery were made. It is here that in 1670 were 

 made the butter-pots of cylindrical shape, and of sufficient capacity to 

 hold 14 Ibs. of butter, the size and quality of which was regulated by 

 an act 'of parliament. The vicinity supplied various clays suited for the 

 different wares, and a lead glaze was obtained by the use of galena, or 

 sulphate of lead. In 1680, salt glazing was accidentally discovered. In 

 1685, white and brown stone ware was made from local clays, and 

 Crouch ware in 1690, glazed by salt and red lead. In the same year 

 the Elsrs, brothers, of Nuremberg, established themselves at Bradwell, 

 and attempted to produce an imitation of the red Japanese ware ; but 

 their secret having been discovered by Astbury, they removed to 

 Lambeth or Chelsea in 1710. Astbury, who at first produced red 

 ware, afterwards made a white dipped, or white stone ware of Bide- 

 ford pipeclay and Hhelton marl, and in 1720, the use of flint was 

 discovered, and slip kilns for boiling the clays ; and plaster of Paris 

 moulds were subsequently introduced. Improvements in the working 

 of the clay were made by Booth about 1750, but the great stride in the 

 potteries was made by Wedgwood, who produced an improved o-eamware 

 io 1759, which was named Queens ware, after Queen Charlotte. From 

 1760-62, he invented six different kinds of ware; he was the first to 

 introduce a classical style and fine modelling, by the aid of Flaxman, 

 into the art, and showed as much taste in the moulding of his piece* 

 as excellence in the ware, which, made of the fine grey marl from 

 under the coal strata, produced a material uninjured by the vicissitudes 

 of temperature, of a cane colour, and at first ornamented by a rude 

 border, was subsequently covered with a pattern ; he also made terra 

 cottas, basalt, jasper, granite, and onyx wares, especially plaques, 

 medallions, and works of taste and vertu of a blue jasper ware, with 

 white figures in relief, which obtained a great European reputation. 

 As early as 1767 the discovery was made of applying printed designs 

 from copper-plates to pottery, which was thus decorated at Liverpool 

 by Carver and returned to Burslem. Sarah Klkin, a servant of Wedg- 

 wood, first discovered a successful method of gilding earthenware, 

 ui<l -f. Hancock, about 1800, used a process resembling water-gilding 

 for the same purpose. 



Although Cornish clay was introduced into the Staffordshire pot- 



