Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. EARTHENWARE. CREAM-COLOUR, AGATE WARE, TORTOISESHELL, Etc. Ant1qu1ty Of Earthenware.--Its Rev1val By Engl1sh Potters.--Improvements 1n Earthenware Follow1ng On The Researches For A Wh1te Body.--Increase 1n The Trade Of The Potter1es Towards The Beg1nn1ng Of The E1ghteenth Century.--Introduct1on Of Fl1nt And Cream-colour Ware.--Torto1seshell And Colours Under Glaze.--Patents.--Agate Ware.--Thomas Astbury.--Ralph Shaw.--John M1tchell.--Thomas And John Wedgwood.--Thomas Wh1eldon.--Shapes And Models.--Im1tat1ons And P1rac1es.--IntroducT1on 1nto The Potter1es Of Blue Pa1nt1ng On Earthenware.--EnAmell1ng.--Fore1gn Ch1na Pa1nters Work1ng 1n England.--Plaster Moulds And The1r Effect.--Last Improvements 1n Cream-colour. EARTHENWARE. HE history of the best English earthenware glazed with lead is so intimately linked with the records of the manufacture of common pottery in the earliest times, the one being so necessarily the outgrowth of the other, that it is difficult to fix the date when the fabric entered on the course of improvements by which it gradually came to assert itself as the cheapest, the neatest, and the most suitable ware that could be contrived to supply our ordinary wants, and ultimately superseded all the more complicated processes which previously had had their turn of fashion and success. A little more care in the potting and in the way of applying the glaze, and the vessels of the middle ages might have rivalled most of the cream-colour pieces made in the eighteenth century. The common marl of the country, mixed with pipe-clay and a little sand, constituted a plastic body which could be worked easily and quickly, and also fired safely; as to glazing, the lead ore or "galena" demanded but little preparation, and the colours were all ...