Chapter XIV: Part 14

At Raeren in the duchy of Limburg this industry attained importance about 1550, and was continued for over seventy years; 1539 is the earliest date known to occur on this ware. The pieces were of two kinds, brown-glazed and grey; the latter usually decorated with blue. The favourite form is a baluster-shaped jug with heraldic designs or a frieze of figures round the middle. The subjects are from Scripture history or contemporary peasant life as interpreted by Hans Sebald Beham and the German and French "Little Masters." Examples are known bearing dates and names or initials of mould-cutters, among them Ian Emens and Baldem Mennicken; but it must not always be inferred that a piece is as old as the date introduced in its decoration, for the same set of moulds might be used for many years.

Another important centre in the 16th century was at Frechen near Cologne. Round-bellied jugs known as _Bartmänner_, from the bearded mask applied in front of the neck, covered with a brown glaze, which in later examples is often coagulated into thick spots, were first made here towards the end of the 15th century, and continued to be the staple product well into the 17th. The jugs of this type, known as Greybeards or Bellarmines, which were exported in profusion to England, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, were mostly made here. At Cologne itself there were also factories, probably before the 16th century, the later productions of which resemble those of Frechen.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the busiest stoneware centre was the district surrounding Höhr-Grenzhausen in Nassau known as the Kannebäckerländchen, where artistic ware was being made before 1600. Soon after that date manganese purple was first used in the decoration in addition to cobalt blue, and henceforward colour in combination with impressed and incised ornament tended more and more to supersede decoration in relief. Figure subjects gave place to rosettes, foliage on wavy stems, and geometrical patterns. Vessels of large size and fantastic shape appear beside the standard forms of the earlier factories. In the 18th century the forms of beer-vessels became stereotyped in the globular jug with cylindrical neck and the cylindrical tankard, while tea and coffee pots, inkstands and other vessels, hitherto unknown, began to be made. A stoneware manufacture dating back to the middle ages existed at Creussen in Bavaria. The productions of this district during the 17th and 18th centuries consist of tankards of squat shape, jugs and jars, of a dark red body, covered with a lustrous dark brown glaze, frequently painted after the first firing in brilliant enamel colours with figures of the Apostles, the electors of the Empire, or other oft-repeated motives. Imitations of the wares of Raeren and Grenzhausen were made at Bouffioulx near Charleroi; other minor centres of the manufacture were at Meckenheim near Cologne and Bunzlau in Silesia.

As in England, so in Holland (by Ary de Milde and certain Delft potters) and in Germany, attempts were made with some success, early in the 18th century, to imitate the Chinese red stoneware, known as _boccaros_. The early efforts of Böttger, the discoverer of the secret of true porcelain, at Meissen, belong to this category. His red ware is of such hardness that it was cut and polished on the lapidary's wheel. For some time after the manufacture of red ware at Meissen had ceased, a glazed brown ware of less hard body with gilt or silver decoration was made at Bayreuth. The products of other minor factories of this class cannot now be identified.

Mention may be made of the lead-glazed peasant pottery, such as the bowls produced at Marburg with quaint symbolical devices modelled in relief and applied. Slip-covered wares with _graffiato_ decoration, apparently of indigenous growth and not inspired by foreign examples, were made well on into the 19th century near Crefeld and elsewhere in Germany, at Langnau in Switzerland, and by German emigrants in Pennsylvania. In Holland a peculiar green-glazed ware was made in the 18th century with pierced geometrical decoration recalling the Dutch carved woodwork of the period.

_Delft._--One of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of pottery is the appearance about 1600, in a highly developed state, of the manufacture of a tin-enamelled earthenware at Delft. It was introduced in that town by Herman Pietersz of Haarlem, but whence he learned his art is unknown. The faience-makers (_plateelbackers_) were one of the eight crafts of Delft which formed the Gild of St Luke founded in 1611. About 1650 a great development took place, and till the latter years of the 18th century, when its faience was ousted by the more serviceable wares of the English potteries, Delft remained the most important centre of ceramic industry in northern Europe. The ware is of fine buff-coloured clay, dipped after the first firing in a white tin-enamel, which formed the ground for painted decoration; after painting, this was covered with a transparent lead glaze and fired a second time, so that in its technique it belongs to the same class as the painted Italian majolica and the old French faience. At its best it is rightly ranked among the greatest achievements of the potter's art.

Characteristic of the first period are dishes and plaques in blue monochrome with somewhat overcrowded scenes of popular life in the style of the engravings of Goltzius. Imitations of the oriental porcelain imported by the Dutch East India Company were introduced about 1650 by Aelbregt de Keizer and continued for some time among the finest productions. At the same time the earlier tradition was developed in the finely painted landscapes and portraits of Abraham de Kooge and Frederick van Frytom. Other potters of the best period were Lambartus van Eenhorn and Louwys Fictoor, makers of the large reeded vases with Chinese floral designs in polychrome, Augestyn Reygens, Adriaen Pynacker, and Lucas van Dale; to the last are attributed the pieces with yellow decoration on an olive-green enamel ground. The rare examples with polychrome decoration on a black ground in imitation of Chinese lacquer are the work of Fictoor and Pynacker. With the 18th century came a largely increased demand and a consequent deterioration in artistic quality. The rise of the German porcelain factories had its effect in the introduction of overglaze painting fired in a muffle kiln, typified by the work of the Dextras, father and son. This innovation, by which the Delft potters attempted to compete with European porcelain, contributed to the ruin of their art by eliminating the skilled touch required for painting on the unfired enamel. The ware frequently, but not invariably, bears a mark derived from the sign of the factory (the rose, the peacock, the three bells, &c.), or the name or initials of its proprietor.

A small faience factory was started by Jan van Kerkhoff about 1755 at Arnhem; its productions were of good quality, chiefly in the rococo style, marked with a cock.

The exportation of the Delft ware to Germany occasioned the rise of numerous factories in that country for making faience in imitation of the Dutch. Among these may be named Hanau (founded about 1670), Frankfort and Cassel. Others, such as Kiel and Stralsund, drew their inspiration from the productions of Marseilles and Strassburg (q.v.). At Nuremberg a factory was founded in 1712, which was but little affected by extraneous influences; among its characteristic productions are dishes with sunk decoration in the form of a star, and jugs with long necks and pear-shaped bodies, often spirally fluted. Similar wares were made at Bayreuth. The Dutch and French styles were carried by German potters into Scandinavia; factories were established at Copenhagen in 1722, at Rörstrand and Marieberg near Stockholm in 1728 and 1758, and at Herrebøe in Norway about 1759.

At the close of the 18th century the influence of imported English earthenware was strongly felt. In Holland workshops were established for painting the English cream-coloured ware with subjects suited to the Dutch taste; and in Germany cream-coloured wares and _steingut_ in imitation of Wedgwood's productions were manufactured at Cassel, Proskau and elsewhere. The "Delft" ware of Holland during the 17th century was a beautiful decorative ware, in which the Dutch painters caught successfully the spirit, and often the very colour value, of Chinese blue and white porcelain. Its fame spread over the whole of Europe, and its styles were readily imitated by the potters of all other countries who made a similar ware. Even the polychrome Delft, though not nearly so beautiful as the "blue and white," is strongly decorative, and one sees in the polychrome faience of northern France and of Germany more than a trace of its influence. When this ware was supplanted by English earthenware it was a clear instance of a ware that was technically superior displacing a more artistic product.

Calaggiolo: 16th century.

Faenza. Casa Pirota, 1525.

Urbino. Decorated by Orario Fontana.

Urbino. 1525 (?). A plate of the famous Gonzaga Este service.

Faenza: early 15th century.]

_Collections._--For German wares the German museums are naturally
best. The museums at Munich and Nuremberg contain splendid collections
of the tin-enamelled and peasant wares of South Germany. Cologne has a
wonderful collection of the Rhenish stoneware, and Berlin and Hamburg
have good general collections. Copenhagen and Stockholm are especially
good for Scandinavian wares, and Zürich for Swiss. There are also good
collections of German stoneware in the Victoria and Albert and the
British museums, and in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, and the museum
at Sèvres; but there are no notable collections of the German
tin-enamelled wares out of Germany. The wares of Delft may be best
studied in the museums at the Hague and Amsterdam. There is an
interesting collection at the factory of Thooft and Labouchère in
Delft. The principal museums in England, France and Germany all have
fair to good collections of this renowned ware.

LITERATURE.--For tiles and peasant pottery, see Forrer, _Geschichte
der europäischen Fliesen-Keramik_ (Strassburg, 1900; chapters on the
Netherlands and Germany); Walcher von Molthein, _Bunte Hafnerkeramik
der Renaissance in Österreich ob der Enns und Salzburg_ (Vienna,
1906); Hafner, _Das Hafnerhandwerk und die alten Öfen in Winterthur_
(Winterthur, 1876-1877); Barber, _Tulip-ware of the Pennsylvania
German Potters_ (Philadelphia, 1903). For stoneware, see Solon, _The
Ancient Art Stoneware of the Low Countries and Germany_ (London,
1892); Van Bastelaer, _Les Grès wallons_ (Mons, 1885). For Böttger's
red ware, see Berling, _Das Meissner Porzellan_ (Leipzig, 1900), chap.
iii. For Dutch faience, see Havard, _Histoire de la faïence de Delft_
(Paris, 1878), and article by same author on "La Faïence d'Arnhem" in
_Gazette des beaux-arts_, 2nd series, vol. xx. (1879). For German
faience, see von Falke, _Majolika_ (Berlin, 1896), and articles by
Stieda, "Deutsche Fayencefabriken des 18. Jahrhunderts," in
_Keramische Monatshefte_, vols. ii. and iii. For Scandinavian pottery,
see Nyrop, _Danske Fajence og Porcellainsmaerker_ (Copenhagen, 1881);
Stråle, _Rörstrand et Marieberg_ (Stockholm, 1872); Grosch,
_Herrebøe-Fayencer_ (Christiania, 1901). Excellent accounts of most
branches of the subjects are given by Brinckmann, _Das hamburgische
Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe_ (Hamburg, 1894). (B. Ra.)

LATER WARES OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

We shall only deal at length here with those important kinds of pottery that have exerted real influence on the historical development of the art. Offshoots from the main stem that have developed little or no individuality can only be briefly mentioned. When the characteristic Spanish-Moorish lustre wares ceased to be desired by the wealthy they rapidly sank into insignificance, though as a decorative peasant pottery their manufacture never really ceased and has been revived again in our day. The course of pottery importation was changed and the now fashionable Italian majolica was brought into Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, as Hispano-Moresque wares had followed the opposite course two centuries earlier. Besides the influence which these imported wares had on the Spanish potters, a number of wandering Italian majolists found their way into Spain, so that we find the use of painted colour, particularly blue, yellow, orange, green and purple, making its appearance at various centres, around Valencia, at Triana near Seville, &c., but the most important manufacture was at Talavera in the centre of the peninsula. The best of this ware recalls the late Italian majolica of Savona, and the influence of Chinese porcelain designs, probably filtered through to the Spanish potters by the then popular enamelled Delft wares, is very apparent. The potteries of Talavera are mentioned as early as 1560, and they continued at work, with varying fortunes, down to the end of the 18th century. Many and varied wares were produced, including tiles as well as pottery; the most common pottery pieces are dishes, bowls, vases, _tinajas_, holy-water vessels, drug-pots, and hanging flower vases, together with moulded and painted snails, owls, dogs, oranges, almonds, walnuts, and every kind of fruit. Apart from the poorer colour the baroque style of ornament also rendered the ware much inferior to that of Italy or of France. The popular Talavera wares were imitated elsewhere in Spain, and a number of factories existed at Toledo in the 17th century, but their wares are very inferior. In the 18th century, besides debased imitations of this ware, some coarse but striking pottery was made at Puente del Arzobispo near Toledo.

An interesting offshoot from the Talavera potteries is to be found in the tin-enamelled wares made at Puebla, Mexico, from the early 17th century. It is said that Spanish potters were settled at this place by the Dominicans soon after 1600; and the making of a debased form of Spanish majolica continued there for nearly two centuries. See Barber's "Tin-Enamelled Pottery," _Bulletin of the Philadelphia Museum_, 1907. During the 18th century determined efforts were made by King Charles III. and by the famous Count Aranda to improve the Spanish pottery wares, as well as to introduce the manufacture of porcelain. The efforts of the king led to the foundation of the porcelain works at Buen Retiro near Madrid, which will be mentioned later, and considerable success also attended the revival of strong copper lustre, like that of the late Hispano-Moresque wares; but the finest tin-enamelled wares were those made at Alcora in the important factory founded by Count Aranda in 1726, which continued in operation down to the French wars. For his purposes the count brought from Moustiers, then one of the famous French pottery centres (see above), Joseph Olerys, a well-known pot-painter. He went to Alcora as chief draughtsman and designer, having charge of a number of Spanish potters and painters. Olerys introduced the Moustiers style of decoration, and the glaze and body of the Alcora wares of the best period recall the fine quality of Moustiers faience. It is only fair to add that Olerys in his turn learnt the use of various delicate yellow and green colours from the Spaniards, and when he returned to France in 1737, having acquitted himself most honourably, he introduced this new style of delicate polychrome decoration at Moustiers. The mixture of motives and ideas that animated the duke and his potters may be seen by the following list of wares produced about 1750. Vases of different shapes; small teapots; teapots and covers, Chinese fashion; teapots and covers, Dutch fashion; cruets, Chinese style; entrée dishes; salt-cellars, Chinese style; _escudillas_ (bowls) of Constantinople; _barquillos_ (sauce-bowls), Chinese style; cups, plates, and saucers of different kinds with good painted borders in imitation of lace-work, and finally fruit-stands, salad-bowls and dishes, trays and refrigerators. Later in the century the manufacture of porcelain was introduced here, as well as white earthenware made in imitation of the productions of Wedgwood, and the tin-enamelled wares flickered out in Spain as they did elsewhere.

The manufacture of a kind of debased majolica was also practised in Portugal from the 16th century down to our own times; but the ware never attained to any distinction and is little known outside that country. The best-known specimens were made at Rato, near Lisbon, where a factory was founded in 1767 under the patronage of the court.

Mention must be made of the unglazed native pottery of Spain and Portugal, for wine-jars, water-jars and bottles, cooking pots, and other domestic utensils are still made in these countries for ordinary domestic use, in traditional forms and by methods of the most primitive kind. Many of these vessels, especially the _tinajas_ (wine-jars) and water-coolers, are based on ancient, classical or Arab forms, and in every country market-place it is still common to see groups of vessels, in unglazed pottery of fine shape and finish, exposed for sale--a very different state of things from what obtains in France, Germany, and particularly in England, where the primitive methods of the peasant are being imitated by those who ought to know better. From the 16th to the 18th century a special kind of unglazed pottery vessels known as _buccaros_ was extensively made both in Spain and Portugal. The body of the ware is unglazed, whitish, black or red, according to the special kind of clay. The curious point about this ware is that, if we may believe contemporary documents, the vessels were delicately scented, like a ware imported from Mexico; and the soft vessels are said to have been eaten--a custom common enough in certain parts of Central and Southern America. (See M.L. Solon, _The Noble Buccaros_, 1896.) (W. B.*)

ENGLISH POTTERY FROM THE 16TH TO THE 18TH CENTURY[21]

The course of pottery manufacture in England followed, generally rather in the rear, that of France, Germany and other northern countries. Before the coming of the Romans much pottery of the late Stone age and the Bronze age was made in Britain. The Romans introduced their more advanced technique, and, besides importing Italian and Gaulish pottery, they founded numerous centres of pottery manufacture, as at Upchurch, Castor, Uriconium, &c. With the departure of the Roman legions their simple, yet comparatively advanced, pottery vanished, and Saxon and early Norman times have left us little but wares resembling those of the Germanic and Frankish productions (fig. 50). The early middle ages passed without much improvement, and, though rare specimens--like the ewer in the form of a mounted knight in Salisbury Museum--proved that glazed wares were made in this country, the general run of our medieval pottery vessels never soared above the skill of the travelling brick or tile maker.[22] The monastic tile-makers, with their strong, Gothic tile pavements, produced artistic work of a very high order; but the patrons of the common potter remained content with his rudely made and simply glazed pitchers, flagons, dishes and mugs (see fig. 51). Even in the 16th century the excellence of English pewter probably acted as a barrier to the introduction of finer pottery, and it was only the importation of foreign wares--Italian, German, Dutch and French--that stirred up our native clay-workers to the possibilities of their art. In early Tudor times there was some importation of Italian majolica as well as of the Hispano-Moresque pieces, and the religious wars as well as the constant intercourse with the Low Countries brought over to the eastern counties not only the stonewares of the Rhineland and the "Delft" wares of Holland, but also emigrant potters from those countries who tried to practise their native crafts amongst us. The Civil War appears to have been unable to check this new spirit, for we have the evidence of dated examples to show that various immigrants went on quietly practising their trade along the Thames side, in what were then the outskirts of London, and probably in the eastern counties and Kent as well. It seems probable that the earliest influence was an Italian one, but before this was firmly domiciled it was supplanted by that of the Dutch and Germans. The first wares of an improved kind that were made in England are so closely related to the German stonewares and the "Delft" wares that it is often difficult to determine whether actual specimens are of English or foreign origin. The first, and in some senses the greatest, of English potters was John Dwight, an educated man, who had held the office of secretary to three successive bishops of Chester, and who obtained a patent in 1671 for the manufacture of certain improved kinds of pottery. We have no knowledge where Dwight acquired his skill in the potter's art, for when he obtained his patent he was residing at Wigan (Lancashire), far removed from the districts where foreign potters had settled. About 1672-1673 Dwight set up a factory at Fulham, where he resided till his death in 1703. He was always an eager experimenter, and from his diaries it seems certain that he was searching after the, then, mysterious Chinese porcelain. We have no grounds for believing that he ever attained success in this search, for his known productions may be grouped into two main classes: (1) Hard-fired red stoneware--mostly small vessels, teapots, mugs, &c., in imitation of the Chinese buccaros.[23] (2) Whitish, grey, or drab salt-glazed stoneware made in imitation of, and often not to be distinguished from, the wares of the Rhineland. But Dwight produced a considerable number of modelled portrait-busts, statuettes, &c., all in stoneware of various tints, which entitle him to a place in the very first rank of potters. The portrait-bust of Prince Rupert (British Museum), the statuettes of Meleager (British Museum), of Jupiter (Liverpool), &c., are worthy of a sculptor of the Italian Renaissance, while the recumbent effigy of Lydia Dwight (Victoria and Albert Museum) is one of the most beautiful works ever executed by an English potter.

Meantime the manufacture of tin-enamelled pottery, in the style of "Delft," was prosecuted with increasing industry in London on the south side of the river, and particularly at Lambeth. By the end of the 17th century the same imitation "Delft" wares were made at Bristol and Liverpool, continuing until, in the closing years of the 18th century, tin-enamelled earthenware was abandoned in favour of the perfected English cream-colour. There is a strong family likeness in all this English "Delft," whether made at Lambeth, Bristol or Liverpool. The body of the ware is harder and denser than in the tin-enamelled wares of the continent, and is not so suitable for its special purpose, as it is generally deficient in lime. The decoration is usually painted in cobalt blue of good tone, though inferior in softness and richness of tint to that of the best Delft pieces; polychrome painting was not so common, and it differs from that of the Dutchmen in the greater prevalence of a pale yellow colour and the general absence of any good red like that found on the polychrome wares of Delft, Rouen, Sic.

German stoneware also received a well-merited share of attention long before the time of Dwight, and it is often impossible to distinguish the grey and brown ale-jugs, greybeards, &c., presumably of English manufacture in the 17th and early 18th centuries, from their German prototypes. Fulham remained an important centre of this manufacture, and a fine brown stoneware was largely made at Nottingham as early as 1700; in each case the manufacture continues in neighbouring districts to this day.

The development of a native English pottery took place in North Staffordshire. A growing community of peasant potters, who manufactured some strongly decorative English wares by very simple means, was established here from the middle of the 17th century. Rudely fashioned dishes, jugs, bottles, &c., were shaped in the local red-burning brick clays, and, while the pieces were still soft, simple but effective decorative patterns were drawn upon them in diluted white clay (slip), trailed on through a quill or from a narrow-spouted vessel. This ancient and world-wide process (for it was used by the Ptolemaic Egyptian, the Roman and the Byzantine potters) has furnished the peasant potters of every European country with characteristic wares, but nowhere was it used with greater skill than in England. The English slip-decorated wares are often spoken of as "Toft ware," because Thomas Toft, living in what is now Hanley (Staffordshire) boldly signed and dated many of his pieces (1670, &c.); but similar wares were made at Wrotham in Kent, in Derbyshire, Wales and elsewhere. The repute of the Staffordshire district must have spread by the time of the Revolution, for soon after 1690 John Philip Elers, a Dutchman of good family, settled there and began to make a superior pottery to any previously made in the district. Elers is generally described as a great inventor who brought all kinds of knowledge into the district, but the only wares he is known to have made were singularly like those of Dwight, and, quite recently, records of a lawsuit in which Dwight charged Elers and some other Staffordshire potters with suborning his workmen and infringing his patents have been brought to light. It is certain that, from the time of Elers, the Staffordshire potters made great advances in the fabrication of their wares, and during the 18th century they evolved two distinctively English kinds of pottery, (1) the white and drab salt-glaze, (2) English earthenware.

_Staffordshire Salt-glaze._--It is uncertain when and how the Staffordshire potters learnt that a highly siliceous pottery could be glazed by throwing common salt into the kiln at the height of the firing, for the practice had originated in the Rhineland more than a century before. Many writers have maintained that the practice was introduced by Elers, but this is uncertain. Early in the 18th century a fine, white, thin, salt-glazed ware was made in Staffordshire, in many quaint and fanciful forms largely influenced by Chinese porcelain--still an object of wonder and mystery. Teapots, coffee-pots, tea-caddies, plates, dishes, bowls, candlesticks, mugs and bottles were made in great variety, and at its best the ware is a dainty and elegant one, so that a brisk trade was developed in the district, and, for the first time, a distinctively English pottery was exported to the continent and to the American colonies.

_English Earthenware._--The manufacture of tin-enamelled pottery scarcely obtained a foothold in Staffordshire, but the invention of the white salt-glazed ware paved the way for one of the greatest revolutions in the potter's art that the world has ever seen. This was nothing less than the abandonment of the ordinary red or buff clays with a coating of white slip or of tin-enamel, and the substitution of a ware white throughout its substance, prepared by mixing selected white-burning clays and finely-ground flint (silica).[24] The change has generally been associated with Wedgwood, most famous of English potters, but he really only perfected, along with his contemporaries, the Warburtons, Turners and others, the work of half a century's experiment and discovery. The ware compared most favourably, from the point of view of serviceableness, neatness and mechanical finish, with all that had gone before it, and as the tin-enamelled wares had almost everywhere in Europe sunk to the position of domestic crockery--for the Chinese, German, French and English porcelains had displaced it with the wealthy--this better-fashioned and more durable English ware gave it its final death-blow. English earthenware in its various forms was to be met with all over Europe, from London to Moscow, and from Cadiz to Stockholm; and, aided by emigrant English potters, the continental nations soon began a similar manufacture for themselves. Everywhere this great change was encouraged by the growing fondness for mechanical perfection, and it is not without a sigh that a lover of pottery can witness the gradual disappearance of the painted tin-enamelled wares--degenerate survivals though they were of Italian majolica, French faience and Dutch "Delft"--before the unconquerable advance of another form of pottery which in its inception was based on technical rather than artistic qualities, especially as nearly a century passed before the new material was turned to artistic account.

By general consent the name of Josiah Wedgwood has been pre-eminently associated with this great change, and with good reason, for though he had many contemporaries who equalled or even excelled him in certain kinds of pottery, no other potter ever approached him in the range of his products and the varied applications to which he turned the exercise of his remarkable talents.[25] True, he soon abandoned the simple Staffordshire wares, coloured with mottled glazes or clay-slips, to which the names of Astbury or Whieldon are commonly attached, but the varied productions of his factory united the best work of a district fruitful in new kinds of pottery, with something especial to Wedgwood himself. Thus he adopted and improved the green and yellow glazes which had come down from medieval times (see the cauliflower ware piece, Plate X.), and gave a new direction to their use in his green-glazed dessert services, candlesticks, &c. He carried on the manufacture of hard-fired red-clay teapots, mugs, coffee-pots, cream-jugs, &c., introduced by Elers; and, along with his fellow-potters, he invented drab, grey, brown and other colours in similarly hard-fired unglazed bodies. He neither invented nor alone perfected the Staffordshire cream-coloured earthenware, but he made it so well that his "Queen's ware" was the best of its class. He undoubtedly invented the Jasper ware, in which on grounds of unglazed blue, green, black, &c., white figures and ornamental motives, adapted from the antique by Flaxman, Webber and other sculptors, were applied; and he even attempted to reproduce the painted vases of the Greek decadence in dry colours painted over a hard black body.

Wedgwood's "Jasper ware," his most original production (see Plate X.), differed both in nature and composition from all the species of pottery that had preceded it. In an attempt to obtain the qualities of the finest porcelain biscuit, Wedgwood discovered, after years of experiment, that by mixing together a plastic white clay and "cawk" or barytes he could obtain a "body" which might be "thrown" on the wheel or "pressed" in moulds, and which, while it fired to a white and sub-translucent pottery, was capable of being coloured, by the usual metallic oxides, to various shades of blue, green, yellow, lilac and black. The ware resembled "biscuit" porcelain in that it needed no glaze to render it impervious to water, and it thus marked the culmination of those "dry" or unglazed wares that had been so largely made in China, Japan and Europe, where the quality resides in the fired clay material without any adventitious aid from a glaze. The general practice was to make the body of the vessel of a coloured material and to ornament this with applied figures or ornamental reliefs, in "white" of the same kind, "pressed" from intaglio moulds and then applied by wetting the surface and squeezing--leaving the fire to unite the vessel and its applied ornament into one piece. Sometimes the ornament was in a coloured clay applied on a white body, and we get in the same way black on red, buff on red or black, and red or black on buff and drab bodies. The variety of bodies produced by Wedgwood and his followers in this way is exceedingly great, and is only to be equalled by the diversity of their application, for the pieces made include plaques, vases, plates, dishes, jardinières, bulb-pots, teapots, cups and saucers, inkstands, scent-bottles, buttons, buckles, and, in a word, every kind of thing that could be made in clay. Many of the applied designs, whether of figures or ornament, were very beautiful in a way, being copied or adapted from Greek and Roman gems, vases, &c. At their best they are marvellous for the precision and delicacy of their execution, and it is impossible to imagine that anything better could have been done in this style. So perfectly did they represent the taste of their period that attempts were made at Sèvres, Meissen, Berlin and Buen Retiro to produce something of the same kind in porcelain; but none of these can be compared with the works of Wedgwood, or his great contemporary Turner (see Plate X.), in beauty of colour or perfection of workmanship.

It is obvious nowadays that much of this work was inspired by mistaken motives; that it was founded on an imperfect view of ancient art; and that it was marred by its mechanical ideals; but it must be remembered that it was in perfect harmony with the spirit of the times, and that while it emphasizes for us the pseudo-classic taste of the late 18th century, it marks an advance in the technical skill of the potter, which is simply astounding. The co-ordination of labour, which had gone further with the Greek and the Italian potter than is generally supposed, was now brought to a climax. Mechanical appliances were introduced for the performance of many portions of the potter's work that had hitherto been indifferently performed by rude and exhausting manual toil; and while the application of mechanism was pushed too far--so that in the first half of the 19th century we find the most inartistic pottery the world has ever seen--we must regard this even more as a cyclic movement of human feeling than as the work of any individual, or group of men. The late 18th century marks the period when pottery was no longer produced, as Italian majolica, the Henri-Deux ware, the Palissy wares, the best faience of Nevers, Rouen, Moustiers, Delft or Nuremberg had been, for the noble or the wealthy, but when it was largely in demand by the poorer classes, anxious in their turn to have a useful ware which should imitate the more costly porcelain used by the great. France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, and later the United States, all followed in the wake of the English potters, and the printing-press was applied in all countries to produce elaborate engraved patterns in blue, brown, green, &c., in order to get an effective-looking ware in harmony with the spirit of the times, and at the same time cheaper in price than the simple painted patterns of the vanquished tin-enamel.

_Collections._--The British and the Victoria and Albert Museums
naturally contain the most representative collections of English
pottery. The museums at Liverpool, Bristol, Burslem, Hanley and
Nottingham, also have good collections, while Birmingham, Manchester
and Stoke-upon-Trent may be mentioned. The Guildhall Museum, London,
is rich in early wares found or made in London and its vicinity.
Continental collections of English pottery are meagre in the extreme
and badly described, even in the ceramic museums at Sèvres and
Limoges. The collection at Dresden is interesting, as it was purchased
from the collection made by Enoch Wood, a Staffordshire potter. In
America, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of
New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at Philadelphia,
contain interesting examples of wares exported to America in the late
18th and early 19th centuries.

LITERATURE.--The earliest compilations, such as Jewitt's _Ceramic Art
in Great Britain_ (1878), and _Life of Josiah Wedgwood_ (1865);
Chaffers, _Marks and Monograms_ (1863; 9th edition revised, 1900);
Meteyard's _Life of Wedgwood_ (1865-1866), and Shaw's _History of the
Staffordshire Potteries_ (1829; reissued London, 1900), must always be
of interest as original sources of information; but the later works,
such as Church, _English Earthenware_ (1884; new edition, 1906);
_Josiah Wedgwood_ (1894, reissue 1903 and 1907); Solon, _Art of the
Old English Potter_ (1883; 2nd ed., 1885); Hobson, _Catalogue of
English Pottery in the British Museum_ (1903); Burton, _English
Earthenware and Stoneware_ (1904), are the best authorities.
(W. B.*)

CHINESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN[26]

In China, as in every other country where pottery-making has been practised for centuries, we find a natural progression from primitive pottery akin in shape, decoration and manufacture to the pottery of other primitive races the world over. We find too the early use of bricks, tiles, &c., as in Egypt and Assyria; and then the usual succession of domestic utensils, funeral vases, and vessels for religious ceremonials. There is nothing to show that the potter's wheel made its appearance in China earlier than elsewhere, and the Chinese potters have used the simple methods of carving and "pressing" from moulds which preceded the use of the potter's wheel, even more than other nations. In books of the Chow dynasty (1122-249 B.C.) the difference between the processes of "throwing" and of "pressing" from moulds is clearly described,[27] and it is instructive to note that many early as well as late forms of Chinese pottery are remarkably like their works in bronze. In the same way there is no definite date to which we can refer the introduction of glazed pottery. The earliest specimens of glazed ware known are referred by the Chinese to the times of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), a date much later than that of the earliest glazed wares of Egypt and Assyria. Remembering the intercourse between China and the West, at times historically remote, it is not impossible that the idea of coating a vessel of clay with a glaze was carried into China from Chaldaea or Assyria. In any case the Chinese developed the potter's art on their own lines, for we have ample evidence that from very early times they fired their pottery to a much higher temperature than was common in the west of Asia, and so discovered types of glaze and of pottery that remained for centuries a mystery elsewhere. The glazed wares of the Han dynasty already mentioned are quite unlike any contemporary pottery produced in Syria, Egypt or Europe, for the body of the ware is so hard that it can scarcely be scratched by a knife, and the dark-greenish glaze has become iridescent by age as though it contained oxide of lead. The easily-fired friable wares of Assyria, Egypt and Greece seem to have had no attraction for the Chinese, and the glazes on their hard-fired wares were naturally different from those already described. The Chinese appear to have been the first potters in the world to discover that at a sufficiently high temperature pottery can be glazed with powdered felspathic rock mixed with lime. At first these glazes were used on any ordinary refractory clay which might burn red, drab or buff; but in this technique lay the germ of Chinese porcelain, the most advanced form of pottery the world has yet seen. It is necessary to consider the pottery that preceded porcelain, for not only was it the matrix out of which porcelain grew, but in certain districts of China, where the necessary materials for porcelain are not found, similar wares have been manufactured without intermission to the present time. Naturally, in progress of time, the technique of this pottery has been greatly improved, both by developments in the preparation and mixture of the clays, the shaping and modelling of the wares, the introduction of coloured enamels or glazes, and the like. Dr Bushell, who is our great authority on the Chinese arts and handicrafts, rightly seizes on two outstanding types of Chinese pottery other than porcelain which have exercised considerable influence on the doings of European potters.

1: _Yi-Hsing-Yao_.[28]--This is the pottery, generally of unglazed
fawn, red or brown stoneware, made at Yi-hsing-hsien in the province
of Kiang-su. Articles of every kind are made in these fine-coloured
clays, but the general forms are dainty and skilfully finished pieces,
such as small teapots, cups, saucers, dishes, trays, water-bottles and
wine cups. This ware was largely manufactured under the Ming dynasty
(A.D. 1368-1643) and later.[29] It was imported into Europe by the
Portuguese, who applied to it the name _boccaro_, formerly given only
to a scented terra-cotta brought from Mexico and Peru.[30] This
pottery and Chinese porcelain were wide asunder as the poles in nature
as well as origin, but the potters of northern Europe regarded every
kind of pottery coming from the Far East as a species of porcelain,
and the manufacture of red teapots, mugs, bowls, cups, &c., in
imitation of the Yi-Hsing-Yao was widespread during the late 17th and
early 18th centuries under the name of red porcelain. Dwight, Elers
and Böttger are notable names in this connexion.

2. _Kuang-Yao_.--The name given by the Chinese to the pottery made in
the province of Kwang-tung. There are several centres of manufacture
in this extensive province, but for the purposes of this article it is
sufficient to state that the best-known of these wares are dense,
hard-fired and glazed stonewares, which are always dark-coloured grey,
red, brown or blackish. They are usually glazed with thick, variegated
or opalescent glazes, grey, blue, green, yellow or red, but flecked,
veined and streaked with other tints. The wares are so like the
productions of the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) that modern pieces are
often confounded with the more precious productions of that epoch. One
of the first lessons to be learnt by the student of Chinese pottery is
that, with great reverence for their own antiquities, the Chinese of
every period have endeavoured to reproduce the famous wares of their
ancestors, and often with such skill as to deceive the most expert.
Even when the manufacture of porcelain was at its highest in
King-tê-chên, the potters in other parts of China carried on the
production of glazed or unglazed pottery in coloured clays, and,
further, the directors of the imperial factory from time to time
strove to reproduce the most archaic wares that could be found in the
Empire.

Chinese. Sang de Boeuf.

Chinese. Flambé.

Chinese. Turquoise glaze "crackled."

Purple Soufflé.

Coral red.

Peach blow. Pigeon's blood.

Lemon yellow.

Apple green.]

_Porcelain._--By this word we distinguish broadly all those pieces of pottery in which the body of the ware is vitrified and translucent, and also, broadly speaking, in which the material is white throughout, unless minute quantities of metallic oxides have been definitely added to colour it. It is impossible to draw any hard and fast line between porcelain and stoneware, for both may be thoroughly vitrified and translucent in thin pieces--but generally the stonewares are drab, red or brown in the colour of the fired clay, and they seldom exhibit the precious quality of translucence. If the body of a piece of pottery is not even vitrified, however hard it may be, it is terra-cotta or earthenware. The Chinese, accustomed from a very early period to fire their pottery to a high temperature, produced vitrified stonewares before any other nation. Moreover, they glazed these stonewares with fusible mineral substances, and from that stage the natural refinements of methods must necessarily have produced porcelain. In regions where beds of primary clay were found, the body of the ware would burn whiter than elsewhere, and a mixture of limestone or marble with the felspathic rock would give a glaze of greater purity and brilliance and one that was more readily fusible and Would spread better over the whole piece. How many centuries were needed before a ware white enough and translucent enough to be now classed as porcelain was produced we cannot know; but the process was certainly one of gradual evolution. Some Chinese writers in their zeal for ancient things have ascribed to remote periods the production of wares of this class. Where authentic specimens are not to be found it is necessary to proceed with caution, and literary evidence alone cannot be deemed sufficient to settle such a difficult point. The balance of opinion at the present time is that something worthy of the name of porcelain was made during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907), but we have no pieces earlier than the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1259), and the majority of these are perhaps more fitly described as stoneware than as porcelain.

Under the Sung dynasty China enjoyed great material prosperity, and all the arts were cultivated assiduously. Pottery of distinguished merit was made in many districts, and much of it has been classified as porcelain because the body is whitish and vitrified, though it is much inferior in finish and in translucence to the perfect white porcelain of later times. It is necessary to realize, too, that we have no record of any pottery with painted decoration until perhaps the very end of the 13th century; such ornament as was used consists entirely of designs incised or modelled in the clay. But the principal decoration is to be found in the varied coloured glazes with which the wares, whether stoneware or porcelain, were covered. The glaze is never clear and white as at later times; it is generally uneven, imperfectly fused and presents all the marks of an imperfect technique. The nearest approach to white is found in an opalescent grey which shades off to greenish and bluish tints. The glazes of this period which are most highly valued are the _céladons_, a family of cool bluish or yellowish greens of indescribable depth and softness. Besides the _céladons_ which are the most uniform in tints of the Sung glazes, we get many shades of palish lavender, brownish yellow and brownish black, but these are all subtly or boldly mottled, splashed, clouded or veined with strange tones of red, blue, purple, opalescent grey and black. The most famous of these now very rare Sung wares were the stonewares of Chunchow, remarkable for their rich and varied glazes, the black variegated glazed wares of Fu-kien province, "hare's fur cups" and "partridge cups" of collectors, and the four principal wares that may be called porcelain, viz.--the _Ju-Yao_, made at Ju-chow in Honan; the _Kuan-Yao_ (Kuan = "official" or "imperial"), made first at Pien-chow and afterwards at Hang-chow; the _Ko-Yao_, made at Liu-t'ien; and the _Ting-Yao_, made at Tung-chow in Chih-li.

This was the period when Chinese porcelain became known beyond its native country, for the first mention of porcelain outside China appears in the writings of a Mahommedan traveller, Sulaiman, who visited China in the 9th century and wrote: "They have in China a very fine clay with which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen through them";[31] and its first appearance in the west is always given as A.D. 1171 (or 1188), when Saladin sent a present of forty pieces to the sultan of Damascus. From this time onwards an export trade was developed, particularly in the _céladon_ wares of Lung-chüan, a city in the south-west of the province of Chehkiang. This famous ware, the "green porcelain" of the Chinese, probably made as an imitation of jade, exists mostly in the form of thick heavy dishes, bowls and jars, bearing incised or fluted patterns, and coated with a remarkable thick green glaze of indescribable softness of tone. Though the body of the ware is white when it is broken through, any parts not covered by the glaze have a reddish-brown colour due to the unrefined paste, and when the ware was reproduced in later times this reddish-brown tint had to be imitated artificially. The ware was highly prized both in China and Japan, in the islands of the East Indies, and in all Mahommedan countries. In Persia it was largely used, and specimens of it have been recovered during the last century from the east coast of Africa and as far west as Morocco. "Archbishop Warham's cup" at New College, Oxford, which is the first specimen of Chinese porcelain to reach England that we can now produce, is a _céladon_ bowl with a silver-gilt mount of the time of Henry VIII.[32]

The Sung dynasty was overthrown by the Tatars under Kublai Khan (grandson of Jenghiz Khan), and the power remained in Tatar hands until 1368, when the great native dynasty of the Mings was established. During this period (Yuan dynasty), roughly a century, one can say little of ceramic progress, for the wares of the period are singularly like those of Sung times. But two important changes took place which had a marked influence on the subsequent development of Chinese porcelain--(1) the concentration of the industry at King-tê-chên, which was consummated in the early years of the Ming dynasty; (2) the introduction of painted decoration under a white transparent glaze, the idea of which (and perhaps the necessary cobalt mineral) was brought from Persia.

King-tê-chên was already a pottery centre when its factories were rebuilt in 1369 by Hung-Wu, the founder of the Ming dynasty, who made it the imperial factory, so that the best porcelain workers were attracted thither, and in the other old centres the industry was abandoned or some earlier manufacture was continued, as in the southern province of Kiang-su. In the province of Fu-kien a distinct kind of porcelain manufacture has also continued. We have already mentioned the black glazed cups, "hare's fur," &c., made in this province in Sung times, and, while King-tê-chên was to be the scene of the developments of the coloured and painted porcelains, Te-hwa in Fu-kien perfected the manufacture of the famous and beautiful white porcelain in bowls, dishes, cups and statuettes, best known under its French title of _blanc de Chine_.

The earliest painted Chinese porcelains, which are referred to the beginning of the Ming period, though some of them may be older, speak strongly of ideas imported from the west of Asia. The pieces are massive both in form and substance, and the ornament, consisting of figures mounted or on foot, animals, bands of diaper or foliage, or pendant necklaces, is strongly silhouetted by a raised outline recalling the decorative methods of the Assyrian brickwork. The technical methods also recall the methods of western Asia, for the ware was fired before it was glazed, and then yellow, turquoise, green or purple glazes, similar in nature to the glazes of Egypt, Syria and Persia, and quite unlike the Chinese Sung glazes, were filled into the outlined spaces and melted at a lower temperature. The Grandidier collection in the Louvre, the Franks collection at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as all the great private collections of Chinese porcelain, contain samples of this primitive and archaic-looking ware.

The great stream of porcelain decoration was, however, to take an entirely different direction. The Persian pottery with its brilliant painted decorations in blue, green and purple on a pure white ground, exercised its natural fascination over men as keen in colour-sense as the Chinese potters. With the concentration of the industry at King-tê-chên, and the rapid improvement in technical skill and knowledge that followed, the production of a fine porcelain with a transparent white glaze was perfected. Of all the colours used by the Persian pot-painter the only one that would endure the fierce fire of the Chinese porcelain was the blue obtained by using the ores of cobalt, and with this colour, and a wonderful blood-red obtained from copper, the foundation of Chinese painted porcelain was laid. It would be idle to try and fix any specific date for this important development, which took more than a generation to perfect, but it is reasonably accurate to say that the blue and white painted porcelains were unknown in the 13th century and were fully developed at the beginning of the 15th century. Chinese collectors prize most highly the blue and white of the reign of Suen-tê (A.D. 1426-1435), of Chêng-hwa (1465-1487), and next of Yung-lo (1403-1424). It is interesting to note that the colour used during these reigns is spoken of as "Mahommedan" blue, so that it was evidently brought from some country to the west. This 15th-century blue and white porcelain is admittedly the finest of its class, and though the Chinese never abandon an old method and have continued to make blue and white porcelain, often of very good quality, the later wares, fine as they may be, rarely equal these.

The under-glaze red, an invention of the Chinese, has already been mentioned, and this most difficult of all ceramic colours was largely used during the same period. At first it appears as a general ground colour for the outside of bowls and cups, then vessels were made in special forms (persimmon fruit, &c.) to display its qualities, finally it was used either alone or in conjunction with blue in painted designs under a white glaze of exceptional quality. A Chinese connoisseur of the 15th century describes one of his pieces as being decorated with "three red fishes on a white ground, pure as driven snow; the fish boldly outlined and red as fresh blood, all with colour so brilliant as to dazzle the eye."

Other characteristic wares which made their appearance in Ming times are the marvellous "eggshell" porcelains, called by the Chinese "bodyless" from their extreme thinness. As early as the reign of Yung-lo (1403-1424) these delicate wares were in high repute, and their manufacture has been continued ever since with varying skill and success. In spite of their extreme thinness the specimens have designs of dragons in the midst of clouds and waves, inscriptions, &c., engraved in the paste before firing. In the fine white specimens the design is so delicate that it is barely visible until the vessel is filled with liquid or held to the light. Others were covered with a coloured glaze which serves to accentuate the design, and the most prized of these are the yellow pieces made during the reign of Hung-Chi (1488-1505) and Chêng-tê (1506-1521).

Another wonderful variety of Chinese porcelains which made its appearance at this period is the well-known perforated ware, commonly spoken of, from the shape of the perforations, as "grain of rice" porcelain, though the Chinese have exhibited consummate skill in the manufacture of perforated pieces of all kinds. Sometimes the perforations are left clear, but in the rice-grain pattern the incisions are generally filled up with the melted glaze so that they become like so many windows in the walls of the piece. We have already seen that the Persian potters used a similar method of decoration in the 16th century, but we are unable to say at present whether the device originated in China or in Persia. Its use in both countries is only an additional proof of the intercourse between eastern and western Asia.