Description:
One of three circular English creamware dessert dishes with three moulded bead borders - around the rim edges, and top and bottom of the fluted curvature - and a band of openwork pattern (hearts, diamonds, ovals, and circles) around the rim. Enoch Booth (c.1703-1773) of Tunstall, England, developed the fine, light-colored earthenware now known as creamware in the early 1740s using the various improvements in body, glaze, and firing; but it was Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) who perfected and successfully marketed the ceramic body. Wedgwood’s version of creamware resulted from many experiments with white clays and improved glazes; by 1762, he had developed a light, sturdy, refined, and yet inexpensive cream-colored earthenware body. Wedgwood described the new product as "a species of earthenware for the table, quite new in appearance, covered with rich and brilliant glaze, bearing sudden alterations of heat and cold, manufactured with ease and expedition, and consequently cheap." Middle-class consumers rushed to purchase creamware, bringing the popularity of alternative ceramics such as tin-glazed earthenware and salt-glazed stoneware to an end. In an effort to capture a segment of the creamware market, many English potteries also began to produce the ceramic; estimates suggest that more than 150 factories in England manufactured the ware. Unfortunately most early wares were not marked, making attribution to a particular factory difficult, and many factories such as Wedgwood, Leeds, Castleford, Don and Whitehead produced variations of these openwork patterns using similar combinations of hearts, ovals, diamonds, circles, etc. These dishes are part of a group of five from the John B. Morris collection (#466); HD 57.202.1-.3 have a heart included in the openwork design and a tape label on the back inscribed "1115" and HD 57.202.4-.5 do not have a heart in the design and have a tape label inscribed "991."
Subjects:
Pottery; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+57.202.1 |
