Description:
English creamware miniature dish with a molded scalloped, feather-edges rim and a terraced step in the curvature used to hold the removable, circular pierced strainer or drainer with an openwork design of holes and crescents around a larger hole in the center; these two pieces may be married since the colors of the strainer and the dish are slightly different. It is difficult to assign a specifc use to these dishes since similar forms are referred to as "lemon drainers" in the 1798 Whitehead Catalogue and 1796 Castleford Pottery Pattern Book, and "egg poachers" and "egg separators" in Wedgwood catalogues. Robin Reilly defines an "egg poacher" as a shallow dish with one or two handles, pierced with holes in a regular pattern but small enough to allow the egg to set without the white passing through; and an "egg separator" as a small pierced dish, similar in shape to the egg poacher but with only one handle and pierced with holes of sufficent diameter to allow the egg white to pass through them, leaving the egg yolk behind in the dish. Wedgwood made both from circa 1775 and possibly earlier. 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.
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+2006.33.71 |
