Stoneware

“ The literature of English ceramics is rapidly becoming like many of the editions of Shakespeare, where a few lines of text stand as an oasis in a desert of commentators' controversial opinions.
It is, therefore, refreshing to find, as one does undoubtedly find in Staffordshire salt-glazed ware, one of the most remarkable and original outbursts in English art pottery that has taken place. This delicate stoneware is as thin as some of the Oriental porcelain, and possesses a grace and symmetry peculiarly its own. In some of its decorations it bears a likeness to Chinese work. ”

“ Slip.—A thick semi-solid fluid composed of clay and water. Spurs. Spur mark.—During the glazing of earthenware "spurs" or "stilts" of fire-clay are used to support the articles and keep them from touching each other. "Spur" or "cockspur" marks are found on the ware where it has rested on these supports (see Chapter IX., p. 298) . [32] Stoneware.—A variety of pottery distinct from earthenware, and more nearly approaching porcelain in its characteristics. Earthenware, as has been shown, needs a coating of glaze to protect its porous defects. Stoneware is a hard body needing no glaze. ”

“ Between faience and porcelain comes, midway, Stoneware, in which many wonderfully, and some fearfully, made things have been done of late, but which possesses the combined qualities of faience and porcelain—the ease of manipulation of the former, and the hardness and durability of the latter; but the tendency to over-elaborate the detail of its decoration, and rely less on the beauty of its semi-glossy surface than on meretricious ornament, has rather spoiled a very hopeful movement in Ceramic Art. ”

“ The Dutch potters in the seventeenth century covered their ware with an opaque [44] white tin enamel to conceal the dark earthen body and to enable them to paint on its surface in imitation of Chinese porcelain. Stoneware, such as the jugs of early type known as Bellarmines, is of very vitreous earthenware fired so hard as to resist acids or the use of a file when applied to the surface. When glazed this class of ware has salt glaze. ”

“ The productions of the firm are the ordinary classes of earthenware and stoneware for the home trade. In these wares dinner, tea, toilet, and all the usual services are largely produced in every variety of style and of various degrees of ornamentation, both in “sponged,” printed, painted, enamelled, gilt and lustred styles. Stoneware jugs and other articles are also largely made and are of excellent quality, as are also black ware and other jardinières flower vases, &c. ”

“ The four principal kinds of pottery manufactured by Messrs. Stiff and Sons are: 1. Brown salt-glazed stoneware, in which the [142] tubular socket drain-pipes so extensively made here are produced; water-filters, jugs, bottles, jars, and all kinds of chemical apparatus are also made in this class of ware. 2. White stoneware or “double-glazed” ware, or “Bristol ware,” in which salt is not used, but the glazing is obtained by the application of a liquid glaze to the interior and exterior of each article before it is placed in the kiln. ”

“ Stoneware is equally opaque, but it is as hard as porcelain. It may be as thick and heavy as a German beer-mug or a stone ginger-beer bottle, or it may be cream in colour, and thin as a Passover cake, as in salt-glazed Staffordshire ware, or white and heavy, as in later stone china. Porcelain may be hard or soft and possesses properties [43] equally its own, but is outside the scope of this volume.
Practically earthenware is of such porous clay that when fired in the kiln it is unfit for use, as it is still too porous until it receives a coating of glaze. ”

“ Drab stoneware.—The dominant position attained by the Staffordshire potters in the 18th century is due to unremitting efforts to achieve the whiteness of porcelain in their native products. Improvements in stoneware were mostly in this direction, with the first steps plainly evidencing what they failed to achieve. ”

“ The body of the ware, which is usually fine as pipeclay, varies in hardness from soft earthenware, easily scratchable with a knife, to a hard porcellanous stoneware, and in colour from light grey and pale rosy buff to white, like plaster–of–Paris. The usual covering is a thin, finely crackled glaze of pale straw colour or light transparent green, and sometimes the surface has a wash of white clay between the body and the glaze. ”

“ In short, techniques of manufacture such as are exhibited by the shaping of earthenware rims and handles should be the only acceptable guide for identification, and even these are not infallible. As for the stoneware, the manufacturing techniques are so English in character that they are of no help. Thus, once the Rogers stoneware was shipped out of Yorktown, it must have lost its identity as totally as Governor Gooch presumably had hoped that it would. ”

“ The manufactory is now carried on by Mr. Edward Steele, who produces earthenware of the more ordinary qualities, stoneware of good useful character, majolica, and Parian. In stoneware all the usual useful classes of goods are made, and many of the designs and workmanship are of good character. In majolica both useful and ornamental goods are made, and consist of jugs, tea-pots, brackets, flower vases, dessert services with figure centre-pieces, comports, etc.; the designs in many instances are artistic, and the quality, both of the body and colouring, of more than average excellence. ”

“ Stoneware is free from many of these difficulties and, consequently one who attempts the conquest of high-temperature wares is advised to begin with this. Stoneware clay need not be a mixture. There are many clays which can be used for the manufacture of grès with no more preparation than that laid down for common clays. ”

“ Hardness.—The paste exposed in fractured edges can be scratched with a steel point, and often with ease. Some of the white pottery of ancient Tusayan can be carved almost as readily as chalk or sun-dried clay. At the same time all localities furnish occasionally specimens that through the accidents of firing have the ring and hardness of stoneware. The ancient pottery is generally superior in hardness to that produced by the historic tribes. ”

“ Clocks, vases, sweetmeat-boxes, and elaborate dinner services lavishly decorated in over-glaze enamels and gilded, emulated the best work of the porcelain factories. In Staffordshire the story has been repeated. So that form is no guide as to what kind of ware a piece may be. In weight earthenware is lighter than porcelain as a general rule, though variations in the body make this rule an elastic one. In stoneware, and ware approximating to this in character, the weight is heavier than porcelain. All ironstone ware is exceedingly heavy. ”

“ They were made of a light-coloured clay, and took the name of “stoneware,” from their hardness and colour. They were turned on the wheel, the necks being usually covered, with deeply encircling lines; and the ornaments consisted of lines scratched, or incised, into the soft clay with a sharp point, in form of foliage, flowers, scrolls, circles, &c., and then washed in with blue colour. In some instances a pattern—usually a flower or initials—was impressed, from a mould, on the front, as in the manner of the bellarmines. They are generally very thick, and must have been extremely durable. ”

“ The manufacture of a brown stoneware with Renaissance medallions, arabesques, &c., in relief flourished here in the 16th century. At a later period, fine fayence was produced, painted in blue camaïeu. The designs are delicately traced with a brush on a fine paste; the forms are canettes, jardinières, &c. At the end of the 18th century a fabrique of fayence was carried on by a Herr Schmidt, who assiduously copied the English ware; there are specimens in the Sèvres Museum bearing the counterfeit mark of “Wedgwood.” ”

“ After a few years they were closed, and so remained until 1867, when the property was purchased and came into the hands of the present “Kinson Pottery Company,” who commenced making stoneware drain-pipes. Shortly afterwards the company introduced the making of terra-cotta goods, [414] in which they have been very successful, and fire-bricks, which they manufacture to a very considerable extent. The estate consists of about twenty-seven acres of freehold land, which is underlaid through its whole area with a thick compact bed of clay, in layers of various descriptions. ”

“ The "solid" agate ware is produced by layers of different coloured clays being twisted together and cut transversely. The "surface" agate ware is splashed and grained decoration on an ordinary cream body. Astbury Ware.—A generic term applied to specimens in the manner of the Astburys, with raised floral decoration of white on a red unglazed body. Basalt.—Black Basalt, or "Egyptian" ware, is a solid black stoneware of great hardness, made by Wedgwood and by his school of followers. Biscuit.—This term is applied to earthenware and porcelain when it has been fired once. ”

“ The discovery, in 1690, of an economical process of glazing this ware by means of common salt, which made it impermeable to liquids, soon brought it into general use, and displaced all the manufactures of the Delft and soft paste fabrics. A mottled-brown stoneware, known to collectors, is stated to be the manufacture of the age of Edward VI., in consequence of some of the specimens having a silver mounting of the make and fashion of the period of Elizabeth's reign. ”

“ The ware, as a general rule, has a greyish white mass varying from porcelain to stoneware, and with the peculiar quality of assuming a reddish brown tint wherever the glaze is absent and the "biscuit" was exposed to the fire of the kiln. It has, in fact, the "iron foot" though not the "brown mouth," for the body is of a whitish colour under the glaze, and consequently the mouth of the vessel varies from green to greenish white, according to the thickness of the glaze. ”

“ Varnished Faiences—Enamelled Faiences—Silicious Faiences—Pipeclay Faiences—Pebble Work—Feldspathic Faiences—Composition, Processes of Manufacture and General Arrangements of Faience Potteries—Stoneware. Stoneware Properly So-called: Paving Tiles—Pipes—Sanitary Ware—Stoneware for Food Purposes and Chemical Productions—Architectural Stoneware—Vases, Statues and other Decorative Objects—Fine Stoneware—Porcelain. Hard Porcelain for Table Ware and Decoration, for the Fire, for Electrical Conduits, for Mechanical Purposes ”

“ The manufacture of stoneware continued for a century, and in the nineteenth century many fine specimens were being made by various potters, and Messrs. Doulton, of Lambeth, still continue to make stoneware vases and jugs and other vessels of an ornamental character.
Nottingham Stoneware.—John Morley, of Nottingham, was cited in 1693, as one of the persons who infringed Dwight's patent for stoneware. Evidently the same family of potters carried on the business, for in 1726, Charles Morley was a maker of brown stoneware jugs and mugs. ”

“ Under-glaze.—This applies to decoration, painted or printed, done before the glaze is applied to the object—i.e., when completed the decoration is under the glaze. [30] Ironstone China.—An earthenware for which Mason took out a patent in 1813. The body contains a large proportion of flint and slag of ironstone. Jasper Ware.—A fine hard stoneware used by Wedgwood, and imitated by his followers. It is unglazed. Lustre Ware.—Earthenware decorated by thin layers of copper, gold, or platinum (see Chapter XIII.) . ”

“ Elaborate incising and blue-cobalt coloring gave a highly decorative character to the ware, while salt thrown into the kiln during the firing combined with the clay to provide a hard, clean surface matched only by porcelain.
Figure 65.—Buckley-type high-fired ware with laminated body. Four pieces at top have predominantly red body, streaked with buff. All have black glaze, except two at lower right, which have amber glaze.
John Mercer, like so many of his fellow colonials, owned Westerwald stoneware. ”

“ Indeed, although we ourselves do not go in for such chinas we respect a well-made piece of earthenware, for the making of good earthenware is an art in itself. Many a rule attends its successful manufacture. For example, the bottom of a heavy piece must not be too thick, or it will crack, because a tremendous strain comes on the base when the clay begins to dry and shrink. The sides pull from every direction, and therefore the bottom must be sufficiently thin to be elastic, and sufficiently thick to be strong. And that is only one of the problems to be faced by pottery and earthenware makers. ”

“ The best earthenware is made for the home market, some of which is so perfect that, if it were not opaque, it might be mistaken for porcelain. When it is richly decorated and gilt, like that made by Messrs. Minton, Wedgwood, Furnival, Copeland, Brown-Westhead, Brownfields, and several other leaders of the trade, very high prices are obtained for it.
Some of these makers do not devote all their attention to earthenware, but produce other classes of pottery. Amongst the sorts which are most connected with earthenware are majolica, Palissy, Persian ware, and flooring and wall tiles. ”

“ The “Doulton ware” may, without detracting from the originality of much of the decoration, be described as a revival in both composition and style of the German stone-ware, miscalled Grès de Flandre. Like other stone-wares the body is highly silicious, close in texture, and very brittle. The necessary firing takes several days to accomplish, and the glaze is made by throwing salt into the kiln, according to the process discovered, as we have seen, in Staffordshire, and long practised at Lambeth. ”