268 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
TIN-ENAMELED WARE 
Charles F. Binns. 
THE advent of tin-enamels was the outcome of more 
than one series of events. In very early times 
the desideratum of the potters was a pure black. The 
Greeks, after toying with a black pigment upon their 
red clay resorted to the expedient of coating the clay, 
all over and Homer in his famous hymn to Pallas prays, 
on behalf of the potters "let all their cups and sacred 
vessels blacken well." The Romans, also using a red 
clay, produced black pottery by smothering their fire, 
and white appears to have been almost unknown. The 
reason is obvious. The only white coating available was 
of the nature of a chalk or lime. The surface, though 
Hght in color, was more porous than the body itself while 
the black coloring was fusible and served as a partial glaze. 
There was, in ancient Egypt, an attempt to make 
light colored wares but no white clay was within reach 
and while some tendency in the direction of coated or en- 
gobe wares remained in the near East, the work was exotic 
and difficult to sustain. 
With the advent of Chinese productions, however, 
the scene changed. The delicate, translucent quality 
of porcelain appealed to the aesthetic sense of the world 
as nothing had done before. Black disappeared as dark- 
ness vanishes before light and white wares became the 
ideal. 
But still a large part of the difficulty remained. White 
substances which would stand the fire were hard to find. 
Some rocks and minerals there were such as chalk, mag- 
nesia, talc and quartz, but these could not be easily shaped 
nor would they solidify on burning. Some of them could 
be used as a white coating to conceal the nakedness of a 
red clay and to this purpose they were put but the real 
porcelain clay, the white substance which was plastic 
and which would solidify and vitrify under heat was 
not to be had. 
The result of this two fold condition of the demand 
for white wares on the one hand and of the absence of 
white clay on the other was that every effort was made 
to improve the coating which served to conceal the clay. 
This at first took the form of a slip or engobe covered 
in turn by a clear glaze, but as the knowledge of pottery- 
making spread through the lands conquered by the Mo- 
hammedan power, a further development took place. It 
was found that the glaze itself could be made opaque 
and white and that this would obviate the necessity for 
an under coating and when the Moors conquered Spain 
in the twelfth century their potters found an abundance 
of tin oxide ready to hand. The early wares of the tin- 
glaze type being exported from Maiorca, the name 
Maiolica was given and tin enameled pottery has ever 
since been known by it. A variation was introduced 
in Holland where, at Delft, the tin enamel was successfully 
used in conjunction with cobalt blue. Thus the Delft 
wares are a branch of the maiolica family but with char- 
acter of their own. 
It may be a matter of surprise why this manufac- 
ture succeeded in one place and not in another. The 
composition of the glaze was well known and yet when 
Van Hamme tried to make these wares in England he 
met with very indifferent success. The fact is that part 
of the secret lay in the clay. Those were not the days 
of weighing and mixing. If a potter found a bed of clay 
to suit him, well and good. If he did not he made further 
search. The difference between failure and success often 
lay in the fact that the successful man had stumbled upon 
a deposit of suitable clay. It has since been discovered 
that the clay of Delft contained a great deal of lime and 
the English clay which Van Hamme tried to use con- 
tained none. The first point, then, for the successful 
production of tin-glazed pottery is either to find a clay 
. containing lime or to add lime to a clay which may be 
otherwise suitable. 
It may be well at this point to ask why any one should 
care to make these wares. Are they not out of date and 
antiquated, have they not been supplanted by porcelain? 
Yes, and no. In so far as Delft ware was intended 
to be a substitute for porcelain, then almost unattain- 
able, it has been superseded by the genuine article, but, 
as sometimes happens, the pottery began as an imitation, 
developed a quality and beauty of its own and assumed 
a position from which even porcelain cannot dethrone 
it. Furthermore this ware can be made of almost any 
common clay, with the proper addition of lime already 
mentioned, and can be burned and glazed at quite a low 
temperature. It affords excellent scope for the designer 
and painter and for harmony of tone and color quality 
it is unsurpassed. 
Dutch titles are synonymous with fireplace comfort 
and there is really no reason why these should not be ex- 
tensively made and used now. 
There is yet another reason to justify the making 
of tin glazed wares. The art of the past must have for 
every thoughtful person an absorbing interest. First 
because it was a national art and there is no nation capable 
of such in the twentieth century because every nation 
is open to the world, and second, because such works 
serve to establish a criterion of craftsmanship, a stand- 
ard of technical value. No artisan can be found to-day 
whose work will bear comparison with that done long 
ago. The rush of business, the competition and strug- 
gle for existence, never more severe than now, prevent 
a man doing deliberate and thoughtful work. If, then, 
work can be done of which there is already a school and 
for which there is an accepted standard such work is worth 
while. 
Having thus, it is hoped, created an appetite for tin- 
glazed wares the endeavor will be made to set forth 
in some detail the necessary technical procedure in their 
manufacture. 
I. The clay. A soft, plastic clay, such as is used 
for making common brick, will answer the purpose ad- 
mirably. It should not be too fusible. That is, it should 
burn to a dense vitreous body at a heat not lower than 
cone r . If it will stand cone 3 or 4 the glaze will be better. 
This clay should be procured in considerable quantity, 
say two or three barrels and should be turned out on a 
large floor to dry. A barn or an attic floor will answer 
well. When dry the clay should be broken small with 
the back of a shovel or almost any kind of a tool which 
will break the lumps. The smaller the better but the 
size of hazel nuts is small enough. Some good whiting is 
now to be obtained and this must be in fine powder. All 
lumps must be pulverized by sifting through a fine sieve, 
about 40 meshes to the inch is not too fine. The whiting 
is now added to the clay in the proportion of one part of 
whiting to eight of clay by measure. The shovel is quite 
accurate enough to measure by. A good way is to spread 
the clay out on the floor and to scatter the whiting evenly 
over the whole. The mixing cannot be too thorough. The 
