Antique Collecting: Pottery And Porcelain

Antique Collecting: Pottery And Porcelain

Persia and neighbouring countries

In Persia and other Near East countries pottery had been made for many centuries, and while the majority of Europe was in a state of barbarism, attractive wares were being made with brilliantly coloured glazes and with designs incised or painted. The Persians rediscovered the art of tin-glazing, a technique used by the Assyrians, and were masters in the use of coloured lustres by the end of the twelfth century. Both of these processes reached Europe later by way of the Moors in Spain.

Many types of Chinese wares were exported to the Near East countries, and there was a constant interchange of ideas; the Chinese learned of painting in underglaze blue from the Persian potters at Kashan, and the Persians made imitations of their favourite Chinese celadon glazes. Following the important Persian Exhibition held in London in 1931, scholars have turned their attention to the earlier wares, and attempts are being made to trace a sequence of styles and to discover exactly where the various types were made.

Excavations carried out at the end of the nineteenth century first revealed the beauty of these Islamic wares which had then been long forgotten. Ironically, beautiful as so many of them are, most have been restored from fragments found discarded in rubbish-pits in Persia and Egypt. Good examples are, understandably, rare, and poor ones skilfully made up from two or more articles with a generous helping of plaster and paint are to be guarded against.

Most of the wares made in Persian and nearby pottery centres from the fourteenth century onwards are versions of earlier types and show less white, with thick glaze and a very runny blue, are sometimes mistaken for Chinese.

To the north-west of Persia, in Turkey, a distinctive pottery was made. It has a sandy body coated with white slip, decorated with painting of formal floral or leaf patterns outlined in black and coloured in a distinctive thick red, bright green and blue. It dates from about the sixteenth century. This ware was once thought to be of Persian origin, later said to have come from the Island of Rhodes and known as 'Rhodian' ware, but is now accepted as having been made principally at Isnik, a town to the south of Istanbul.

America

Some of the earliest inhabitants of both North and South America were skilled and artistic potters, and examples of their work are to be found in museums; occasionally, they can be bought. In more modern times, in the days of John Smith and Pocahontas, there were still potters at work in America, and it would not have taken the European settlers long to find a suitable clay from which to make domestic pieces. In 1641 there is a record of James Pride, a potter at Salem, Massachusetts, and it is believed that others were operating in Jamestown, Virginia. Of these first craftsmen, and many that followed in their wake, there is a little to show except a written record of some of their names. They made useful everyday wares that served their purpose, were broken and discarded, and there was no particular reason to treasure them.

The picture changed little in the first three-quarters of the eighteenth century. The Crolius and Remney families were established at Potters' Hill, New York City; while at Burlington, New Jersey, Daniel Coxe made what he described as 'White Chiney Ware'. Newspapers of the period show that pottery and porcelain were imported in quantity from England and from the Far East, and the local potters were left to make little other than 'butter, water, pickle, oyster and chamber pots; milk pans of several sizes; jugs . . . mugs . . . bowls, porringers . . . cups', etc.

Very little has survived that can be dated positively as having been made before 1800, and in America. A bowl in the Brooklyn museum, of Pennsylvania red earthenware incised with the date 1775 is outstanding; in the same museum is a white pottery sauceboat, copied probably from a Liverpool imported example, decorated with Chinese landscapes in blue, made in Philadelphia. Examples of red clay domestic ware include baking dishes which are indistinguishable from their English originals; likewise, Pennsylvania dishes with sgraffito decoration closely similar to German country-made ones.

Salt-glazed stoneware was made for suitable articles, and a tall round butter churn by Clarkson Crolius Senior, made about 1800, belongs to the New York Historical Society. At about the same date a pottery was set up to make creamware to compete with imported Wedgwood, gave it the name of Tivoli Ware and advertised for orders and apprentices.

Authentic pieces of the early wares are extremely scarce; as it was purely utilitarian in purpose it was seldom, if ever, marked. The demand for anything sophisticated was met from abroad, until in the early nineteenth century, when conditions grew more settled in the land, and manufactories were started to supply the home market on a large scale.

Porcelain was made in about 1740 by a man named Andrew Duche, born in Philadelphia in 1710. A small bowl with Oriental-style underglaze blue decoration was discovered in 1946 and is assumed to be one of his experimental pieces. It is in a private collection in the United States. Thirty years later, two partners named Gouse Bonnin and George Anthony Morris started a factory in Philadelphia, but it is doubtful whether they made much true porcelain. The first successful commercial making of the ware was again in Philadelphia and owed its inception to a Quaker, William Ellis Tucker, who began to experiment in 1826. Tucker's porcelain was of good quality and included tea sets, vases and other pieces, many of which won awards at exhibitions in New York and elsewhere. The factory closed in 1838.

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