Description: One of a set of six English white salt-glazed stoneware, press-molded plates decorated with a trellis diaper pattern filled with dots and stars separated by scrollwork and basketwork in low relief around the rim, and plain well. Stoneware was delftware's main competition because of its exceptional strength, durability, and whiteness. . Although Staffordshire white stoneware had been perfected by about 1720, its possibilities for mass-production were not fully exploited until the 1740s. Then the techniques of press-moulding, slip-casting and enamelling were developed, and the drabness of the greyish stoneware surface was successfully relieved by the addition of all-over decoration. The glaze on the stoneware was the result of throwing salt into a high temperature oven (1000-1100 degrees), where the heat caused the salt to volatilize and the soda in the salt to combine with the alumina and silica in the clay to form a thin vitreous glass-coating over the surface. That outer layer has characteristic minute pitting. Since there are no factory markings, it is very difficult to link pot with potter. The plates came with a tureen with cover (HD 1992) and tureen stand (HD 1991) and plate (HD 1993).
Subjects: Pottery; glaze (coating by location); Stoneware Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1992.4 |