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 a plain well. Stoneware was delftware's main competition because of its exceptional strength, durability, and whiteness. Both were similarly priced, and both substituted for porcelain. In the 1770's, a dozen salt-glazed plates sold for about 4 to 6 shillings per dozen, or roughly $24 to 36 dollars per dozen today. 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 volatilise 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 any pot with a specific potter. The plates came with a tureen with cover (HD 1992) and tureen stand (HD 1991) and plate (HD 1993).
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1992.1 |
