[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Saxon cinerary urns; the stamped patterns are
shown]
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Common forms of medieval pottery; the upper
part of the slender jug is covered with a green vitreous lead glaze; the
other is unglazed with stripes of red ochre.]
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.*)