Posts Tagged ‘tin glaze’

Delftware
The manufacture of British tin-glazed earthenware began in the 16th century, when it was known as “galley ware possibly named after wares transported by galleys from Spain and Italy. The most important centres of production in Britain were Southwark, Aldgate, and Lambeth in London, Norwich, Brislington, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Wincanton.
EARLY DELFTWARE
A record of 1567 tells of the arrival in Norwich of such Dutch potters as Jaspar Andries and Jacob Jansen, who had fled Antwerp to escape religious persecution. These potters established potteries locally and later at Aldgate in the east of London. Very few examples of 16th-
century British tin-glazed earthenware have survived, apart from some tiles and a number of bulbous-bodied jugs (some with silver mounts). Pottery made during the 17th century is far more common. From the late 1620s virtually until the cessation of tin-glazed production in the late 18th century, there is a considerable body of dated and documentary British delftware, which enables collectors to study the changing shapes and styles of this type of ware over a period of nearly 200 years. From c.1600 small quantities of Chinese porcelain began to be imported by the East India Company into Britain, and some British delftware made from c.1620 shows the influence of these Chinese blue-and-white imported wares. After c.1660 until the end of the 17th century those in the so-called “Transitional” style were copied.
The most notable late 17th-century wares include “blue-dash” chargers, named after the blue dashes around the rim, which were boldly decorated in polychrome with stylized tulips, carnations, oak leaves, biblical subjects, and portraits, particularly Of such monarchs as Charles II, William and Mary, and Queen Anne. The majority of this type are covered with a yellowish
lead glaze on the back, through which the body is clearly visible – it was considered unnecessary to waste the expensive tin glaze on a side that was rarely seen. These dishes have a thick foot-rim around which a cord could be wound for hanging the object on the wall. Other wares included wine-jugs, drug jars, salts, and wide-brimmed dishes. While a few examples show traces of the old Italian-Dutch style, most embrace the continuing fashion for Chinese bloc-and-white wares.
18TH-CENTURY DELFTWARE
From c.1720 British delftware became increasingly distinctive, and the decoration less complex and looser in style. Delftware made in the 18th century tends to be more delicate and intimate (with some robust exceptions from Bristol), and a far greater range of wares was made, including punchbowls, plates, flower-bricks, wall pockets, wine-bottles, guglets, fuddling-cups, pear-shaped jugs, puzzle jugs, posset-pots, and, extremely rarely, tea and coffeewares. While many of these wares were painted with contemporary British subjects –figures, buildings, and landscapes – others are decorated in blue with chinoiserie themes – pagodas, pavilions, Chinese figures, birds, and flowers. Production of British delftware virtually ceased at the end of the 18th century because of the competition from creamware (cream- coloured earthenware).
• BODY British delftware is harder and coarser than the softer, thinner Dutch Delftware
• STYLE before 1620 wares are Italian-Dutch in style; after 1620 the influence of Chinese blue and white is clear; 18th-century wares are less formal, and contemporary British figures and landscapes with chinoiserie subjects remained popular
• GLAZE generally smoother than Dutch Delftware and chips easily; mainly pinkish or bluish; 18th-century glaze is smooth, as opposed to the whiter and “peppered” surface of Dutch Delftware
• PALETTE blue and white dominates; polychrome (iron red, yellow, green, brown, and manganese purple) also used, hit rarer and extremely collectable
• DECORATION this is cruder than Dutch Delftware:
monarchs, bold flowers, oak leaves, chinoiseries
• FLATWARES these have knife-like weals under the outer flange or rim since they were fired in the kiln on stilts
• COLLECTING flatvares are most available; dates and inscriptions and more unusual forms of decoration can increase the value of a piece substantially

Tin-glazed earthenware has been produced in The Netherlands since the end of the 15th century. Introduced by immigrant Italian craftsmen who settled in Antwerp (c.1500), the techniques and the decorative style gradually spread north during the troubled years of the 1560s and 1570s. While many potteries were established at Haarlem, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam, it was the town of Delft that rose to prominence in the mid-17th century and from which the term “Delftware” is derived.
THE INFLUENCE OF ITALY
During the early to mid-16th century, potters produced what is known as the “Italian-Antwerp” style of wares, which were decorated with pine-cone motifs, scrolling stylized foliage, geometric patterns, and, later in the century, strapwork and half-shaded petal borders (sometimes termed “false gadroons”). Designs are often painted in high-fired colours copper green, yellow, and ochre) and usually boldly Outlined in blackish cobalt blue. Early wares include dishes, plates, albarelli (drug jars), and syrup-jugs. Although small household objects such as jugs or double-eared pots were probably made in large numbers, few are extant. Albarelli have survived in some quantity and can be recognized by their pronounced flanged bases and crisp mouth-rims. From around the middle of the 16th century the tortuous strapwork and adapted grotesque ornament of the Fontainebleau School in France are seen on more accomplished wares. Northern designers such as Vredeman de Vries of Leeuwarden and Cornelis Bos of Antwerp were also used as sources for this type of decoration.
Time and distance, however, gradually diluted both these influences (although they did not entirely disappear for another century). By the end of the 16th century new, more humble patterns had appeared, employing simple repeated motifs such as dashes, chevrons, or zigzags, and concentric circles enclosing stylized leaves, fruit, or flowers. Tiles were also made in large quantities, first for floors and later for walls.
Decoration was usually in blue but also in polychrome, and comprised mainly stylized leaves, flowers, and such fruit as pomegranates, and, later, figures with small corner motifs. The most important centres of production for tiles were Rotterdam, Haarlem, Delft, Gouda, Utrecht, and, later, Harlingen and Makkum.
During the period from 1600 to 1650, the influence of Italian maiolica was still felt. Decorative subjects were extensive and included shadowed foliage, whole and sliced fruit in the manner of Venice or Faenza, scrolling bryony-type flowers, zigzag patterns, and concentric bands of simplified foliage encircling formal flower-heads that resembled “targets”. Faenza-style putti and fern-type borders, leaping hounds, equestrian subjects, isolated standing figures, and blue-dash borders were also popular. However, a more local type of decoration that included religious subjects, shipping scenes, and milkmaids was gradually introduced.
THE BLUE-AND-WHITE PERIOD
From the beginning of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) imported blue-and-white Chinese porcelain, known as kraak porcelain, into The Netherlands. The name derives from the Portuguese carracks, or merchant ships, that carried large cargoes
of Chinese export porcelain, two of which were captured by the Dutch in 1602 and 1604. During the early years of the 17th century, the type of Chinese ornament featured on this porcelain was introduced on Delftware. Within a few decades the high-fired Italian maiolica colours were largely displaced by a palette of blue and white, a switch that demonstrates the growing passion for blue-and-white Chinese porcelain.
As the Dutch brewing industry declined, many of the disused breweries in Delft were turned over to the potters, and from c.1650 Delft became the most important centre of production for tin-glazed earthenware. Factories at
this time included the Porceleynen Schotel and the Porceleynen Lampetkan.
Probably the single most important impetus for the vast increase in production of tin-glazed earthenwares was the cessation of imports of Chinese porcelain between 1645 and 1650, when the kilns in Jingdezhen were devastated by the invading Manchus. Between c.1650 and c.1680 the number of potteries in Delft rose from eight to nearly thirty. Production of blue-and-white “porcelain”, as the Dutch termed their tin-glazed earthenware, focused on reproducing Chinese wares made during the reign of Emperor Wanli ( 1,573-1619) and Transitional porcelain (1620-44), or kraak porcelain. Decoration also included Dutch landscapes and biblical subjects. Frederik van Frytom (1632-1702) was the best-known painter of plaques, plates, and dishes decorated with detailed landscapes, with dark-toned foregrounds, lighter-hued middle grounds, and hazy backgrounds. Tiles, drug jars, ewers and other hollow-wares, dishes, and flower-holders, some of great complexity (such as tall tulip vases), were produced. The most important factories included The Metal Pot, whose owner Adriacnus Kocks (d. 1701) supplied wares to the court of William and Mary, and The Rose, The Axe, The Three Bells, The White Star, The Greek A, and The Peacock. The still-life paintings of luscious flower displays by Dutch artists such as Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and Jan van Huysum were very influential on the design of Delftware at this time.
POLYCHROME WARES
From c.1683 imports of Chinese porcelain were resumed, affecting the production of Delftware, which was aimed at the same market. From the end of the century, potters in Delft began to experiment with a polychrome palette. Wares follow the colourful famille-verte (green, red, yellow, purple, and red) and famille-rose (an opaque pink, white, and yellow) export porcelains made in China, which sometimes employed gilding. Another important influence were the Japanese Imari and Kakiemon porcelains, which were imported into The Netherlands in the middle of the 17th century while the Chinese imports were suspended. Dutch polychome wares tended to be restricted to a palette of yellow, blue, purple, green, red, and black. An important producer of polychrome wares in Delft was The Greek A factory (est. 1658), run by the Van Eenhoorn family.
Most of the wares produced during the 18th century are somewhat mundane, decorated with small repeating
patterns. Biblical subjects, plates painted with images of the months, and whaling and seal-hunting scenes were all popular forms of decoration. Production during the 18th century was extremely diverse and included wall plaques, flower-holders, coffee and tea services, butter-tubs, drug jars, candlesticks, garnitures or vases, punch-bowls, dishes, and small models of shoes. There were more than 30 potteries in Delft in the late-17th and 18th centuries, some specializing in tile production, although it seems that only two of these continued production in the 19th century. The increased popularity of English creamware (cream-coloured earthenware) caused the demise of the tin-glazed industry in The Netherlands from the early 19th century.
• BODY extremely fine, soft, and generally thinly potted
• GLAZE thick, white, and with a “peppered” effect due to air bubbles exploding during firing, seen most clearly on the backs of dishes
• STYLE until c.1600: Italianate/Fontainebleau; c.1610-20: Chinese kraak designs; c.1620-50: local styles; from c.1650: Chinese-style blue and white; from the early 18th century: an increase in polychrome in the style of Chinese and Japanese wares
• CENTRES OF PRODUCTION Delft, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Middelburg, and Rotterdam
• COLLECTING the choice for the collector is wide since so much was made; the condition wit] vary, but expect to find chipping on the rims of wares

Ti-glazed earthenware was produced in France from at least the beginning of the 16th century when itinerant potters from Italy first introduced the technique. The ware is called “faience”, since much of the early ware resembled maiolica made in Faenza, Italy.
THE 16TH CENTURY
The dominant style for most of the 16th century was Italian; craftsmen from Italy appear to have settled in Lyons (1512), Nevers, Montpellier, and Nimes, and the output of these centres closely reflects the contemporary Italian polychrome maiolica of Urbino, Faenza, and Savona. The Italian istoriato (narrative) style is found on wares made in Lyons and Nevers, while the panelled a quartiery style associated with Faenza is seen on the faience of Nimes and Montpellier. However, in the north of France at Rouen around the middle of the century the work of Masseot Abaquesne (active 1526-59) is more sombre, and the designs show a strong affiliation with the Mannerist work of the Fontainebleau School. Early Rouen was noted for the manufacture of tiles some still extant in chateaux), albarelli (drug jars), saucer dishes, and flat-rimmed dishes.
THE 17TH CENTURY
The first half of the century continued to be dominated by the Italian tradition, but from the mid-17th century a more native French Baroque style developed. Mythological figures after contemporary prints were Popular subjects; drawn in a bold, muscular style in which ochre and blue are often dominant, they are somewhat livelier than their Italian istoriato predecessors. Dishes, which greatly outnumber hollow-wares (except apothecaries’ wares), were typically embellished with heavy foliated borders, usually interrupted with cartouches enclosing diverse subjects. During the second quarter of the century the influence of imported Chinese porcelain is evident, both in decoration and in form, and consequently the “hot” Italian colours declined in favour of blue and white. Nevers was probably the most important centre until the last 20 years of the century and was one of the first French pottery centres to decorate its wares with Chinese motifs. Here the earliest manifestations are garbled versions of the many imported late Ming blueand-white wares. A large proportion of production was painted in cobalt blue, sometimes outlined in manganese brown with figures in the manner of Chinese Transitional porcelain. Alongside the Italianate and Chinese styles, faience with solid-coloured grounds was made, including, most commonly, bleu persan (Persian blue), cobalt, and, more rarely, ochre.
Rouen, close to Paris and the French court, developed as a prominent centre for faience at the end of the 17th century. The Rouen style of the late 17th and early 18th centuries is formal, utilizing intricate motifs resembling ironwork (forronerie) or lacework (lambrequin) but probably owing as much to contemporary Chinese ceramic ornament. The lambrequin rayonnant style, so-called because of its radiating “snowflake” complexity, was copied by many other manufacturers in France, including those in Strasbourg and Moustiers. At its height (c.1695-1725) Rouen combined this style with vessels based on the shapes of silverwares because the French nobility had been ordered to melt down its silver in order to finance the wars of Louis XIV. Faience therefore became a fashionable substitute for silver.
THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES
Between c.1710 and 1720 polychrome wares became fashionable once again. For the next 20 or 30 years bold chinoiseries in high-fired (grand-feu) colours eclipsed the blue-and-white wares. From c.1750 low-fired (petit-feu) enamelled decoration became the focus of the leading faience factories of the day, located in Strasbourg, Niderviller, Luneville, Sceaux, and Marseilles. In an ultimately futile competition with porcelain, these manufacturers decorated their wares with botanical flowers, chinoiseries, and fantastical landscapes in the most delicate brushwork. Forms from the mid-18th century, in keeping with the innate intimacy of the Rococo, were diverse and lively, almost matching porcelain in some instances.
However, in the late 18th century, competition from porcelain and English creamware (cream-coloured earthenware) proved too much for faience manufacturers, and many failed around the turn of the century. Some potteries survived the onslaught from English creamware by manufacturing the same material, known
as faience fine, which although clean and crisp was never as creamy or warm as the English ware. In France, factories such as those in Creil, Pontaux-Choux, and Montereau, some active before the
mid-18th century, made great quantities of faience fine, thus helping to accelerate the decline of faience. Many of these factories decorated their wares with transfer-printing in the style of creamware from the Wedgwood factory (est. 1759) in Burslem, England.
By the mid-19th century Quimper was one of the few surviving faience factories in France, producing wares with simple figural subjects loosely imitative
of I 8th-century Rouen. Gien, active toward the end of the 19th century, appears to have concentrated on the manufacture of wares in revival styles, using printed designs based on classic Italian maiolica. The output of historicized faience was fairly limited as many factories preferred to produce the fashionable styles current in the dying years of the 19th century. The firm of Samson (est. 1845) in Paris made a wide range of good reproductions of faience. Although this factory applied the original marks, it usually put its own monogram alongside.
• BODY Rouen: red; Nevers and Marseilles: buff;
Strasbourg: creamy white; Moustiers: greyish
• GLAZE Strasbourg: thick and creamy white; Moustiers: creamy grey
• PALETTE “hot” colours inspired by Italian maiolica; from c.1625 blue and white inspired by imported Chinese porcelain; high-fired colours: cobalt blue, manganese purple, ochre, yellow, green, and iron red; enamels: from the late 1740s a wide range of colours
• DECORATION Rouen: lainbrequins and arabesques; Nevers: narrative style; Strasbourg: botanical studies; Marseilles: naturalistic flowers, bouillabaisse; Moustiers: potato flowers, fantastic creatures, Classical figures, and festoons
Marks
These were very randomly applied; marks arc usually the initials of the proprietor of the factory; most are in puce, blue, or black; care should be taken since marks of such collectable factories as Strasbourg, Sceaux, Marseilles,
Rouen, Lille, and Nevers have been widely copied on 19th- and 20th-century fakes
Strasbourg: Paul Hannong factory (c.1740-60) Marseilles: Veuve Perrin factory (c.1740-95) Moustiers: Olerys factory (1 738–c.1790) Quimper: Antoine de la Hal (est. 1782)
Quimper: Fougeray factory (est. 1872): copies of 18th-century originals

Middle East Pottery

The countries and regions that embraced early Islam were ideally located to absorb the cultural, commercial, and technical cross-currents of the early medieval world. Chinese commodities were one of the major influences in Islamic lands – an area that stretched from India to the Atlantic Ocean. Trade with China was well established by the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906), since many Arabs were resident in Guangzhou (Canton), and in addition to spices, perfumes, and silks the Chinese sent ceramics to the Middle East.
EARLY WARES
From the 9th century, potters in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) were so inspired by Chinese wares that they strove to imitate them. The first types of ware made were buff or red earthenwares covered with a tin glaze. In an effort to simulate metals potters also developed the lustre technique, and during the next 300 years this method of decoration spread through Islamic countries, reaching Spain in the 13th or 14th century. Tin-glazed earthen-wares and lustre wares were two of the most important types of pottery bequeathed to Europe by the brilliant Islamic ceramic tradition. In eastern Persia (now Iran) the crisply contoured 10th- and 11th-century slipwares of Nishapur and Samarkand were subtly decorated with abstract leaf or geometric motifs and Kufic script.
PERSIAN WARES
Unique to the Islamic world is fritware, a glassy composition perhaps developed to copy imported Chinese porcelains produced during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). This grainy, white-bodied ware is often covered in a viscous, deep turquoise-blue glaze. Between c.1215 and 1334 plain and lustred wares were made in the town of Kashan, south of Tehran; the technique was probably introduced to Persia in the 12th century by Egyptian potters.
The sophisticated polychrome Mina’i (enamel)
wares of late-12th- or 13th-century Persia may often
seem crowded and confused, but they are nonetheless
outstanding examples of the Islamic decorator’s art.
Mina’i pottery was made in Rayy (now Rhages) near
Tehran, and is decorated with figures and painted in a wide range of colours. Many examples of early Mina’i ware are painted with large-scale figures in the manner of contemporary lustreware, but later the emphasis was
on small-scale, narrative subjects.
Later Persian wares, made during the
Safavid (1501-1732) and subsequent periods, include those from Meshed (eastern Persia), Kirman (western Persia), and Kubachi (northern Persia), most of which were painted in the style of late Ming and Transitional Chinese porcelains. The bodies, glazes, and decorations of these Persian wares Lire very similar and it is difficult to tell them apart.
IZNIK AND KOTAHYA
In the 16th century, extremely fine copies of blue-andwhite Chinese wares were made by the potters in Iznik (east of  Istanbul) and Kutahya in central Anatolia. The potters in these towns created superb, crisply painted
wares with swirling and scrolling foliage, painted either in blue or in a combination of turquoise, green, and, later, a thick red (Armenian bole). In addition to conventional decorative pottery vessels and dishes, Iznik and Damascus potters produced some of the finest tileworks for mosques and secular buildings. These latter wares were highly influential in late 19th-century Europe, as seen in, for example, the work of the English designer William De Morgan (1839-1917).
KEY FACTS
Early wares
•    BODY buff or red earthenware
•    GLAZE tin oxide
•    LUSTRE ruby, brown, yellow, black, red
•    TYPES tin-glazed wares; lustre wares
•    DECORATION fusion of Chinese and Islamic designs, usually abstract
Persian wares
•    BODY Mina’i: coarse; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: white frit paste
•    GLAZE Mina’i: creamy; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: thick and soft
•    DECORATION Mina’i: underglaze colours and overglaze enamels; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: resemble each other; black design outline may suggest a Meshed piece
Turkish wares
•    BODY Iznik: greyish buff, grainy, and absorbent; Kutahya: buff and thinly potted
•    GLAZE Iznik: translucent, but slightly bluish tone; Kutahya: irregular, gathers in bluish or greenish pools
•    STYLES Iznik: “Golden Horn” (c.1530) decorated with knotted pencilled scrolls; “Damascus” (c.1550-70) very sumptuous, with large-scale floral subjects and saw-edged leaf (saz); “Rhodian” (c.1555-1700) mainly floral; Chinese-style blue-and-white wares
•    PALETTE Iznik: wide range of colours dominated by turquoise and a scaling-wax red (Armenian bole)
•    DECORATION Kutahya: crude, floral, and figural
Marks
Islamic pottery is rarely marked, although individual potters’ marks do occasionally appear; corruptions of late Ming seal marks are used on Persian pottery