1S8 
MARKS AND MONOGRAMS, POTTERY, &c. 
[Nature and Art,' October 1, 1866. 
Of this Samian ware only vases, dishes, and plates 
have been found in England, but no regular drinking- 
cups. An example of an amphora is given, found 
at Cologne. We present the copy of an illustration 
of a very fine bowl (alas ! oidy a fragment) of this 
ware, which was discovered in 1 845, in St. Martin’s- 
le-Grand. The original may be seen by any one who 
takes the trouble — which will be well rewarded — 
of a visit to the Museum of Practical Geology, in 
Jermyn Street. The inscription of. vital. ( Officind 
Vitalis, from the workshop of Yitalis) is impressed 
inside it. 
Aretinf, ware, fabricated at Aretium (Arezzo), 
in Etruria, is distinguished from Samian — of which, 
in its larger meaning, it may be perhaps considered 
a variety, though Mr. Chaffers holds it as distinct — 
by the darker red of its colour, and the higher 
finish of its work, and by the potter’s name being 
generally impressed on a “ foot print,” or on the 
outside of the vessel. 
The great authority on this fabric is Dr. Fabroni, 
whose book, mentioned above, is referred to by 
Mr. Chaffers. Only two specimens, one of them 
found in London in 1841, are given, and we are left 
with very scanty information in regard to this ware. 
Of Roman ware produced in England, some of 
blue-black colour has been found in the remains of 
a very extensive pottery along the banks of the 
Medway, near the village of Upchurch. A vase, 
probably of this manufacture, was dug up in 
Cheapside in 1850. 
The Castor ware, made at Castor, in Nor- 
thamptonshire, where are extensive remains of 
kilns, was of a more ornate kind • the vessels and 
fabrication of this ware— specimens of which have 
been found in various parts as well as near Castor — 
are thus described by Mr. Chaffers : — 
“These vessels are ornamented in relief with hunting 
subjects, representations of fishes, scrolls, foliage, and 
human figures ; the mode of 
operation seems to have been 
by means of sharp and blunt 
skewer implements, and a slip 
of suitable consistency. These 
implements were of two kinds, 
one thick enough to carry 
sufficient slip for the head, 
neck, and body of animals, 
and another small enough to 
delineate the details, as the 
tongue, eye, lower jaw, legs, 
and tail. There appears to 
have been no retouching after 
the slip trailed from the im- 
plement. These vessels were 
glazed after the figures were laid on, which are usually of a 
different colour to the body of the ware, as white on a light 
brown or chocolate ground. Fig. 16 [of which we give a 
copy] is a poculum of the Castor ware of white paste, dark 
brown glaze, with a metalloid lustre, representing hounds 
hunting a stag, laid on in slip after the vase was turned, 
and then glazed ; a sort of engine-turned tool work is seen 
at the bottom. Height, 4, 1 inches ; found in Cateaton Street, 
January, 1845.” 
This is also, as we learn from Marryatt’s book, 
where the same plate is given, to be seen in the 
Museum of Geology, and, from Mr. Chaffers’s 
description, it must be an exquisite work. The 
remains of this ware are chiefly drinking-cups, some 
of them, like the example quoted above, attaining 
elegance and luxury in design and ornament. The 
form of some of the 
am phone found in 
London of plain, we 
presume Samian, 
ware, is elegant 
in its simplicity — 
simplex munditiis 
— if the hackneyed 
Horatian express- 
ion may be excused. 
We extract one 
from p. 23, fig. 30. 
Of tiles, cinerary 
urns, and lamps, 
but few examples 
are given ; in regard 
to the last, owing, 
Mr. Chaffers says, 
to their being, with 
few exceptions, of a 
rude character. We 
pass over them, and the former also, as presenting 
no features remarkable in art, only mentioning a 
good specimen of a terra-cotta lamp, which was 
found at Cologne, and can scarcely, therefore, come 
under the head of Vasa Jictilia of England. Of 
figures in terra-cotta, two are mentioned, but they 
are not very remarkable or valuable. 
The marks on the Roman and Romano-British 
pottery consist generally of the plain name of the 
potter, and frequently contracted. In Samian ware 
it is impressed in the centre of the dish, as in the 
figure of a patera, manufactured by one Ursulus, 
