The old majolica shapes are briefly as follows:—among the earliest are small bowls (scodette), often with flattened sides; jugs (boccali) with large lip-spouts, and mouths pinched into trefoil form; large dishes with gradually shelving sides (bacili), or with flat broad rims and deep centres; akin to these are the plateaux with a raised flat disk in the centre; small dishes with broad flat rims and deep though narrow central walls (tondini), suitable for handing a wine-glass or sweetmeats; flat trencher-shaped plates (piattiortaglieri); saucer-shaped dishes on low feet and sometimes with moulded sides (tazzeorfruttieri) suitable for holding fruit. Among the vase forms ovoid shapes with short necks and a pair of flat handles are common in the Tuscan wares of the 15th century; the jars for confectionery, drugs, or syrups were often of the cylindrical form with graceful concave sides known as the “albarello,” in shape of Eastern origin, and in name perhaps derived from the Persianel barani(a vase for drugs, &c.); other vase forms with spouts and handles were used for the same purpose; ornamental vases after classical designs (vasi a bronzi antichi); and in the best Urbino period a great variety of fanciful forms—ewers, vases, cisterns, shells, salt-cellars, ink-pots, &c., with applied masks and serpentine handles, were made in the exuberant taste of the time. A complex piece of furniture for the bedside of ladies in childbirth (vaso puerperale) consisted of a bowl with a foot surmounted by a flat trencher on which fitted an inverted drinking-bowl (ongaresca); and above this again a salt-cellar with cover. Many of these shapes were suited to daily use, but the richly decorated majolica was designed to adorn the walls, thecredenze, table-centres and cabinets of the rich. This alone could have been the destination of the large dishes (piatti di pompa) with rim pieces for suspension, and the smaller dishes (coppe amatorii) with portraits of young men and girls and lovers’ symbols; and it is inconceivable that the costly lustred wares of Gubbio or the finemadreperladishes of Deruta were designed for anything but decorative use. The ware was in fact an article produced for the wealthy in the century of Italy’s glory, and under no other conditions could such magnificent and expensive pieces have been made.Technical Methods.—This is a convenient place to give an account of the methods used by the early medieval potters—(1) because they represent what had been learnt from Roman times to the 16th century, and indeed to the introduction of modern methods, (2) because, besides all that a potter could derive from an examination of the wares, we have ample written accounts of the methods and processes followed by the Italian majolist. Mr Solon has recently published an epitome of the account given in Biringuccio’sLa Pyrotechnica(Venice, 1540), and there is the memorable MS. of Piccolpasso, a potter of Castel Durante, now in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which, besides giving an account of the processes, contains illustrations of kilns, mills, decorative motives, &c.161. The potter’s clay was prepared from mixtures of various kinds prepared by (a) beating and picking out coarse particles, (b) mixing with water, (c) passing through a sieve, (d) drying again into plastic clay ready for the working potter. The essential point about the potter’s clay of the best tin-enamelled wares, whether Spanish, Italian, French or Dutch, is that the clays are those known geologically as “marls,” which contain a large percentage of carbonate of lime. Such clays always fire to a pinky red or buff colour, and give a ware that is strong and yet light in substance, and on no other kind of clay does the tin-enamel display its full perfection (see Deck’sLa Faience). The analyses of certain tin-enamelled wares are useful as showing the essential constitution of the best pottery bodies for such purposes.DeliaRobbia.Majolica.Delft.Faience.FrenchSilica49.6548.0049.0748.65Alumina15.5017.5916.1917.05Lime22.4020.1218.0119.43Magnesia0.171.170.820.27Oxide of iron3.703.752.824.33Carbonic Acid, water, &c.8.589.4613.0910.272.Shaping.—The vessels were either “thrown” on the potter’s wheel (which had remained practically unaltered from Egyptian times), or they were formed by “pressing” thin cakes of clay into moulds, made of a composition of plaster (gesso), bone-ash and marble dust. In the latter way all shapes that were not circular were made, as well as those with heavy bosses or gadroons imitated from embossed metal forms. It is interesting, though not surprising, to note that for the fine later wares, the roughly thrown vases, when sufficiently dry, were recentred on the wheel or were placed in a joiner’s lathe and smoothed to a clean and accurate surface. The Greek potters did the same, and this practice must always be followed where fine painting or gilding is afterwards to be applied. In the later florid vases of the Urbino style the piece was built up of thrown parts and moulded parts (handles, masks, spouts, &c.), luted together with slip when they were dry enough to be safely handled, and then retouched by the modeller or vase-maker, a method followed to this day for elaborate pieces of pottery or porcelain.Plate VRhodian or Turkish: 16th century.Syro-Persian: 13th century.Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.Damascus: 16th century.Persian, lustre and underglaze colour: 13th century.3.The Glaze.—The white enamel which formed at first both the glaze and the ground for painting upon—bianco, as it was called—was prepared in a complicated way. A clear potash glass (marzacotto) was made by melting together clean siliceous sand (rena) and the potash salt left as the lees of wine (feccia). This corresponds to the alkaline glaze of the Egyptians with the substitution of potash for soda. Such a glaze alone would have been useless to the Italian potter, and accordingly thebiancowas made by melting togetherthirty parts ofmarzacottoand twelve parts of lead and tin ashes. The white enamel as used was therefore a mixed silicate of lead and potash rendered opaque with oxide of tin.4. Pigments (colori) were compounded from metallic oxides or earths; the yellow, from antimoniate of lead, which was mixed with oxide of iron to give orange; the green, from oxide of copper (the turquoise tint given to the Egyptian and Syrian glazes by oxide of copper is impossible with a glaze of lead and tin); and the greens were made by mixing oxide of copper with oxide of antimony or oxide of iron; blue, from oxide of cobalt, used in the form of a blue glass (smalto, orzaffara); brownish-purple, from manganese; black, from mixtures of the other colours; and the rare red, or reddish brown, of Faenza and Cafaggiolo was probably the same Armenian bole that was used so magnificently by the makers of the Turkish pottery, but on the white enamel ground this colour was most treacherous and uncertain. It must be remembered that many of these colours owe their tint to the lead used in their composition, or to the grounds containing oxides of lead and tin on which they were painted. Piccolpasso describes the preparation and composition of the various colours used in his day.5.Coperta, or transparent glaze. In the later majolica a thin coating of soft rich glaze was applied over the fired painting to give a smooth bright surface. Thiscopertawas a soft lead glass consisting of silica (sand), 20 parts; oxide of lead, 17 parts; potash, 12 parts; and common salt, 8 parts; fused together and then finely ground in water.6.Methods of Glazing and Decorating.—In the mezza-majolica and the early majolica it is probable that the clay vessel was dipped in the white bath to give it an envelope (invetriatura) before it was fired at all; but it must soon have become apparent that it was much better to fire first the shaped vessel until it was about as hard and brittle as a clay tobacco-pipe, and then coat it with the white enamel, by dipping it into a bath or pouring the fluid material upon it. This was the practice described by Piccolpasso. A coating of white enamel, the thickness of glove leather, having been obtained, the piece was carefully taken by the painter, who first etched in the outline on the absorbent powdery ground, and then shaded the figures, landscapes, &c., in blue or in a mixture of blue and yellow, adding the other colours as gradated washes. The vase was then fired a second time to a heat greater than the first, so that the enamel was melted on the vessel and the colours sunk into the enamel at one and the same operation. This method of painting on the unbaked enamel demanded a bold direct treatment—for alteration or retouching was impossible—and much of the vigour of the earlier designs is due to this fact. As the ware became more refined in its treatment it was felt that this method did not yield a sufficiently brilliant surface, and so the painted and fired piece was coated with a film ofcopertaand fired again at a slightly lower temperature to make it smoother and more glossy. Still pursued by the idea of rivalling the triumphs of pictorial art, the majolist carried his methods a step farther. The white enamel coating was fired before painting, giving a glossy surface on which the painter could draw or wipe out, and so could execute outlining, tinting, or shading of the utmost delicacy. A film ofcopertawas then washed over the painting, and the piece was fired a third time in the cooler parts of the kiln. In some instances it is not easy even for an experienced potter to decide which method has been pursued, owing to the softening of the colours. Generally we should expect that the later and more pictorial pieces had been painted on a ground of fired white enamel, and we may be absolutely certain when delicate white patterns have been “picked out” in a coloured ground.Where lustre decoration has been added to a piece of majolica it indicates, as elsewhere, the use of a special process, and a final firing at a lower heat. The lustre pigments were the same as those used on the earlier lustred wares, and these were painted over an otherwise finished piece. To obtain the lustre effect these were placed in a special kiln, so contrived that when the pots were just visibly red the smoke of the burning fuel (rosemary or gorse) was allowed to play upon them long enough to drive the metallic films (silver or copper) into the already-fired glaze.17Collections.—The Victoria and Albert Museum contains perhaps the most widely representative collection in the world, especially as at the present time the pieces of the Salting and Pierpont Morgan collections are on exhibition there. The British Museum collection is valuable, being rich in “signed” pieces of the first quality. The Wallace collection and the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (Fortnum collection, &c.) are also valuable and contain some remarkable examples. The Cluny Museum, the Louvre and the museum at Sèvres have fine collections; while noteworthy pieces are to be found in the Ceramic Museum at Limoges. In Germany the museum at Brunswick contains one of the largest collections known, but many inferior and doubtful examples. Berlin, Munich, Vienna and St Petersburg have noteworthy collections. In Italy, the Bargello at Florence and the museums of Venice, Milan, Turin, Faenza, Pesaro, Urbino, Rome and Naples all have collections, whilst interesting examples of local manufactures are to be found in many of the smaller Italian towns. The American museums, especially those in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, have some fine examples.Literature.—F. Argnani,La Ceramiche et maioliche faentine(Faenza, 1889 and 1903); D. Bonghi,Intorno alle Majoliche di Castelli(Naples, 1856); Professor Douglas, “Siena,” in theNineteenth Century, September 1900; Hensel,Essai sur la majolique(Paris, 1836); G.I. Montanari,Majoliche dipinte nella collezione del N.S.C. Domenico Mazza(Pesaro, 1836); L. Frati,Di un insigna raccolta di majoliche(Bologna, 1844); alsoDi un pavimento in majolica(Bologna, 1853); J.C. Robinson,Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages(London, 1862); E. Darcel,Musée du Louvre: Notice des faïences peintes; Drury E. Fortnum,Contribution to the History of Pottery(London, 1868); Delange,Recueil de faïences italiennes du XV^e au XVII^e siècle(Paris, 1869); M. Meurer,Italienische Maiolika Fliesen(Berlin); E. Molinier,Les Majoliques italiennes en Italie(Paris, 1883), alsoLa Céramique italienne au XV^e siècle(Paris, 1888); C. Piccolpasso,I tre libri dell’ arte del Vasajo, Castel Durante 1548 (original MS.) and translations by C. Popelyn, Paris, 1841 and 1860, also Italian editions of Rome and Milan; V. Lazari,Notizia della raccolta Correr(Venice, 1859); Drury E. Fortnum,A Descriptive Catalogue of the Majolica in the South Kensington Museum(London, 1873); Beckwith,Majolica and Faience(New York, 1877); G. Corona,La Ceramica(Milan, 1878); G. Vanzolini,Istoria delle fabbriche di majoliche metaurensi(Pesaro, 1879); A. Genolini,Majoliche italiane(Milan, 1881); Mely,La Céramique italienne(Paris, 1884); J.E. Jacobsthal,Süd-italienische Fliesen(Berlin, 1886); Bertolotti,Figulini, fonditori, e scultori(Milan, 1890); H. Wallis,Italian Ceramic Art(1897),The Oriental Influence on the Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance(1900),The Art of the Precursors(1901),The Majolica Pavements of the Fifteenth Century(1902),Oak-leaf Jars: A Fifteenth Century Italian Ware(1903),The Albarello(1904), alsoSeventeen Plates by Nicola Fontana(1905), andItalian Ceramic Art: Figure Designs(1905); Tesorone,L’Antico Pavimento delle Logge di Raffaello in Vaticano(Naples, 1891); Columba,Il “Quos Ego” di Raffaello(Palermo, 1895); Drury E. Fortnum,Majolica(London, 1896); alsoFortnum Collection in the Oxford Museum(London, 1896); O. von Falke,Majolika(Berlin, 1896); alsoSammlung R. Zschille: Katalog der italienischen Majoliken(Leipzig, 1899); Antaldi Santinelli,Museo di Pesaro(Pesaro, 1897); De Mauri,L’Amatore di Majolica(Milan, 1898); E. Hannover,De Spanske-Mauriske, og de forste Italienske Fayence(Copenhagen, 1906).
The old majolica shapes are briefly as follows:—among the earliest are small bowls (scodette), often with flattened sides; jugs (boccali) with large lip-spouts, and mouths pinched into trefoil form; large dishes with gradually shelving sides (bacili), or with flat broad rims and deep centres; akin to these are the plateaux with a raised flat disk in the centre; small dishes with broad flat rims and deep though narrow central walls (tondini), suitable for handing a wine-glass or sweetmeats; flat trencher-shaped plates (piattiortaglieri); saucer-shaped dishes on low feet and sometimes with moulded sides (tazzeorfruttieri) suitable for holding fruit. Among the vase forms ovoid shapes with short necks and a pair of flat handles are common in the Tuscan wares of the 15th century; the jars for confectionery, drugs, or syrups were often of the cylindrical form with graceful concave sides known as the “albarello,” in shape of Eastern origin, and in name perhaps derived from the Persianel barani(a vase for drugs, &c.); other vase forms with spouts and handles were used for the same purpose; ornamental vases after classical designs (vasi a bronzi antichi); and in the best Urbino period a great variety of fanciful forms—ewers, vases, cisterns, shells, salt-cellars, ink-pots, &c., with applied masks and serpentine handles, were made in the exuberant taste of the time. A complex piece of furniture for the bedside of ladies in childbirth (vaso puerperale) consisted of a bowl with a foot surmounted by a flat trencher on which fitted an inverted drinking-bowl (ongaresca); and above this again a salt-cellar with cover. Many of these shapes were suited to daily use, but the richly decorated majolica was designed to adorn the walls, thecredenze, table-centres and cabinets of the rich. This alone could have been the destination of the large dishes (piatti di pompa) with rim pieces for suspension, and the smaller dishes (coppe amatorii) with portraits of young men and girls and lovers’ symbols; and it is inconceivable that the costly lustred wares of Gubbio or the finemadreperladishes of Deruta were designed for anything but decorative use. The ware was in fact an article produced for the wealthy in the century of Italy’s glory, and under no other conditions could such magnificent and expensive pieces have been made.
Technical Methods.—This is a convenient place to give an account of the methods used by the early medieval potters—(1) because they represent what had been learnt from Roman times to the 16th century, and indeed to the introduction of modern methods, (2) because, besides all that a potter could derive from an examination of the wares, we have ample written accounts of the methods and processes followed by the Italian majolist. Mr Solon has recently published an epitome of the account given in Biringuccio’sLa Pyrotechnica(Venice, 1540), and there is the memorable MS. of Piccolpasso, a potter of Castel Durante, now in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which, besides giving an account of the processes, contains illustrations of kilns, mills, decorative motives, &c.16
1. The potter’s clay was prepared from mixtures of various kinds prepared by (a) beating and picking out coarse particles, (b) mixing with water, (c) passing through a sieve, (d) drying again into plastic clay ready for the working potter. The essential point about the potter’s clay of the best tin-enamelled wares, whether Spanish, Italian, French or Dutch, is that the clays are those known geologically as “marls,” which contain a large percentage of carbonate of lime. Such clays always fire to a pinky red or buff colour, and give a ware that is strong and yet light in substance, and on no other kind of clay does the tin-enamel display its full perfection (see Deck’sLa Faience). The analyses of certain tin-enamelled wares are useful as showing the essential constitution of the best pottery bodies for such purposes.
2.Shaping.—The vessels were either “thrown” on the potter’s wheel (which had remained practically unaltered from Egyptian times), or they were formed by “pressing” thin cakes of clay into moulds, made of a composition of plaster (gesso), bone-ash and marble dust. In the latter way all shapes that were not circular were made, as well as those with heavy bosses or gadroons imitated from embossed metal forms. It is interesting, though not surprising, to note that for the fine later wares, the roughly thrown vases, when sufficiently dry, were recentred on the wheel or were placed in a joiner’s lathe and smoothed to a clean and accurate surface. The Greek potters did the same, and this practice must always be followed where fine painting or gilding is afterwards to be applied. In the later florid vases of the Urbino style the piece was built up of thrown parts and moulded parts (handles, masks, spouts, &c.), luted together with slip when they were dry enough to be safely handled, and then retouched by the modeller or vase-maker, a method followed to this day for elaborate pieces of pottery or porcelain.
Plate V
3.The Glaze.—The white enamel which formed at first both the glaze and the ground for painting upon—bianco, as it was called—was prepared in a complicated way. A clear potash glass (marzacotto) was made by melting together clean siliceous sand (rena) and the potash salt left as the lees of wine (feccia). This corresponds to the alkaline glaze of the Egyptians with the substitution of potash for soda. Such a glaze alone would have been useless to the Italian potter, and accordingly thebiancowas made by melting togetherthirty parts ofmarzacottoand twelve parts of lead and tin ashes. The white enamel as used was therefore a mixed silicate of lead and potash rendered opaque with oxide of tin.
4. Pigments (colori) were compounded from metallic oxides or earths; the yellow, from antimoniate of lead, which was mixed with oxide of iron to give orange; the green, from oxide of copper (the turquoise tint given to the Egyptian and Syrian glazes by oxide of copper is impossible with a glaze of lead and tin); and the greens were made by mixing oxide of copper with oxide of antimony or oxide of iron; blue, from oxide of cobalt, used in the form of a blue glass (smalto, orzaffara); brownish-purple, from manganese; black, from mixtures of the other colours; and the rare red, or reddish brown, of Faenza and Cafaggiolo was probably the same Armenian bole that was used so magnificently by the makers of the Turkish pottery, but on the white enamel ground this colour was most treacherous and uncertain. It must be remembered that many of these colours owe their tint to the lead used in their composition, or to the grounds containing oxides of lead and tin on which they were painted. Piccolpasso describes the preparation and composition of the various colours used in his day.
5.Coperta, or transparent glaze. In the later majolica a thin coating of soft rich glaze was applied over the fired painting to give a smooth bright surface. Thiscopertawas a soft lead glass consisting of silica (sand), 20 parts; oxide of lead, 17 parts; potash, 12 parts; and common salt, 8 parts; fused together and then finely ground in water.
6.Methods of Glazing and Decorating.—In the mezza-majolica and the early majolica it is probable that the clay vessel was dipped in the white bath to give it an envelope (invetriatura) before it was fired at all; but it must soon have become apparent that it was much better to fire first the shaped vessel until it was about as hard and brittle as a clay tobacco-pipe, and then coat it with the white enamel, by dipping it into a bath or pouring the fluid material upon it. This was the practice described by Piccolpasso. A coating of white enamel, the thickness of glove leather, having been obtained, the piece was carefully taken by the painter, who first etched in the outline on the absorbent powdery ground, and then shaded the figures, landscapes, &c., in blue or in a mixture of blue and yellow, adding the other colours as gradated washes. The vase was then fired a second time to a heat greater than the first, so that the enamel was melted on the vessel and the colours sunk into the enamel at one and the same operation. This method of painting on the unbaked enamel demanded a bold direct treatment—for alteration or retouching was impossible—and much of the vigour of the earlier designs is due to this fact. As the ware became more refined in its treatment it was felt that this method did not yield a sufficiently brilliant surface, and so the painted and fired piece was coated with a film ofcopertaand fired again at a slightly lower temperature to make it smoother and more glossy. Still pursued by the idea of rivalling the triumphs of pictorial art, the majolist carried his methods a step farther. The white enamel coating was fired before painting, giving a glossy surface on which the painter could draw or wipe out, and so could execute outlining, tinting, or shading of the utmost delicacy. A film ofcopertawas then washed over the painting, and the piece was fired a third time in the cooler parts of the kiln. In some instances it is not easy even for an experienced potter to decide which method has been pursued, owing to the softening of the colours. Generally we should expect that the later and more pictorial pieces had been painted on a ground of fired white enamel, and we may be absolutely certain when delicate white patterns have been “picked out” in a coloured ground.
Where lustre decoration has been added to a piece of majolica it indicates, as elsewhere, the use of a special process, and a final firing at a lower heat. The lustre pigments were the same as those used on the earlier lustred wares, and these were painted over an otherwise finished piece. To obtain the lustre effect these were placed in a special kiln, so contrived that when the pots were just visibly red the smoke of the burning fuel (rosemary or gorse) was allowed to play upon them long enough to drive the metallic films (silver or copper) into the already-fired glaze.17
Collections.—The Victoria and Albert Museum contains perhaps the most widely representative collection in the world, especially as at the present time the pieces of the Salting and Pierpont Morgan collections are on exhibition there. The British Museum collection is valuable, being rich in “signed” pieces of the first quality. The Wallace collection and the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (Fortnum collection, &c.) are also valuable and contain some remarkable examples. The Cluny Museum, the Louvre and the museum at Sèvres have fine collections; while noteworthy pieces are to be found in the Ceramic Museum at Limoges. In Germany the museum at Brunswick contains one of the largest collections known, but many inferior and doubtful examples. Berlin, Munich, Vienna and St Petersburg have noteworthy collections. In Italy, the Bargello at Florence and the museums of Venice, Milan, Turin, Faenza, Pesaro, Urbino, Rome and Naples all have collections, whilst interesting examples of local manufactures are to be found in many of the smaller Italian towns. The American museums, especially those in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, have some fine examples.
Literature.—F. Argnani,La Ceramiche et maioliche faentine(Faenza, 1889 and 1903); D. Bonghi,Intorno alle Majoliche di Castelli(Naples, 1856); Professor Douglas, “Siena,” in theNineteenth Century, September 1900; Hensel,Essai sur la majolique(Paris, 1836); G.I. Montanari,Majoliche dipinte nella collezione del N.S.C. Domenico Mazza(Pesaro, 1836); L. Frati,Di un insigna raccolta di majoliche(Bologna, 1844); alsoDi un pavimento in majolica(Bologna, 1853); J.C. Robinson,Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages(London, 1862); E. Darcel,Musée du Louvre: Notice des faïences peintes; Drury E. Fortnum,Contribution to the History of Pottery(London, 1868); Delange,Recueil de faïences italiennes du XV^e au XVII^e siècle(Paris, 1869); M. Meurer,Italienische Maiolika Fliesen(Berlin); E. Molinier,Les Majoliques italiennes en Italie(Paris, 1883), alsoLa Céramique italienne au XV^e siècle(Paris, 1888); C. Piccolpasso,I tre libri dell’ arte del Vasajo, Castel Durante 1548 (original MS.) and translations by C. Popelyn, Paris, 1841 and 1860, also Italian editions of Rome and Milan; V. Lazari,Notizia della raccolta Correr(Venice, 1859); Drury E. Fortnum,A Descriptive Catalogue of the Majolica in the South Kensington Museum(London, 1873); Beckwith,Majolica and Faience(New York, 1877); G. Corona,La Ceramica(Milan, 1878); G. Vanzolini,Istoria delle fabbriche di majoliche metaurensi(Pesaro, 1879); A. Genolini,Majoliche italiane(Milan, 1881); Mely,La Céramique italienne(Paris, 1884); J.E. Jacobsthal,Süd-italienische Fliesen(Berlin, 1886); Bertolotti,Figulini, fonditori, e scultori(Milan, 1890); H. Wallis,Italian Ceramic Art(1897),The Oriental Influence on the Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance(1900),The Art of the Precursors(1901),The Majolica Pavements of the Fifteenth Century(1902),Oak-leaf Jars: A Fifteenth Century Italian Ware(1903),The Albarello(1904), alsoSeventeen Plates by Nicola Fontana(1905), andItalian Ceramic Art: Figure Designs(1905); Tesorone,L’Antico Pavimento delle Logge di Raffaello in Vaticano(Naples, 1891); Columba,Il “Quos Ego” di Raffaello(Palermo, 1895); Drury E. Fortnum,Majolica(London, 1896); alsoFortnum Collection in the Oxford Museum(London, 1896); O. von Falke,Majolika(Berlin, 1896); alsoSammlung R. Zschille: Katalog der italienischen Majoliken(Leipzig, 1899); Antaldi Santinelli,Museo di Pesaro(Pesaro, 1897); De Mauri,L’Amatore di Majolica(Milan, 1898); E. Hannover,De Spanske-Mauriske, og de forste Italienske Fayence(Copenhagen, 1906).
(R. L. H.; W. B.*)
French Pottery from the 15th to the 19th Century
The pottery of medieval France needs little attention here, for it was, in the main, similar to that which was made generally in Europe—rudely shaped vessels of ordinary clay often decorated with modelled ornament and glazed with yellow or brown lead glaze, or, if coated with white slip, decorated with bright green glazes, and towards the end of the 15th century with greyish blue. The later specimens of this simple ware—pronouncedly Gothic in feeling—were often extremely decorative. Avignon, Beauvais and Savigny are the best-known centres of this truly national manufacture, and, as we might expect in French work, the reliefs are often sharp and well designed. Evidence accumulates that from time to time the princes and great nobles imported Spanish or Italian workmen to make special tiles for the decoration of their palaces or chapels. The duke of Burgundy brought Jehan de Moustiers and Jehan-le-Voleur, “ouvriers en quarrieaux peints et jolis,” in 1391, to paint tiles for his palaces at Hesdin and Arras in the north, and we have already referred to the tile-work in the Spanish fashion made at Poitiers by John of Valencia, the “Saracen,” in 1384 for Duke Jean de Berry.18Other instances might be multiplied but that this foreign work left little or no traces on contemporary French pottery. Even at a later date, when Francis I. brought Girolamo della Robbia from Italy to decorate his “Petit Château de Madrid” in 1529, or when Masseot Abaquesne, about 1542, manufactured at Rouen the painted tile pavements for the château of Ecouen, the cathedral of Langres, and other places, nothing came of the imported methods; the works were executed and left no traces on the general pottery of the country. During the 16th century, however, two remarkable kinds of pottery were made in France of distinctive quality, and both eminently French—the Henri-Deux ware and the pottery of Bernard Palissy and his imitators.
Henri-Deux,OironorSt Porchaireware, for all these names have in turn been applied to the enigmatic and wonderful pottery, specimens of which are now valued at more than their weight ingold, was once believed to have been made by the librarian Bernard, and his assistant Charpentier, for their patroness Helène de Hangest about 1529 at her château at Oiron, near Thouars.19A few years ago this theory was discarded in favour of one which assigned them to some unknown potter of St Porchaire in the same region;20but even of this theory there is insufficient proof, and we are left in doubt both as to the maker and the place of origin. All we know is that the ware dates from the reign of Henry II., and that it was probably made somewhere near Oiron, as most of the specimens have been found in that district. The work issui generis, for it had no direct ancestry, neither did it leave any mark on contemporary French pottery. Sixty-five pieces of the ware (see fig. 48) are known to be in museums and private collections; the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum have the best collections of their kinds, but the Rothschilds still hold the greater number of examples. The ware is fashioned in a simple whitish pipeclay, and ornamented with interlacing strap-work patterns, typical of the period, inlaid in yellow, buff or dark-brown clay. The forms are generally graceful, but some examples are over-elaborate and overloaded with modelled ornament. The pieces were designed to serve as candlesticks, salt-cellars, tazzas, ewers, holy-water pots and dishes. After the vessels had been “thrown” and “turned” to a perfect shape, metal tools, such as were used by the bookbinders and casemakers of that day, were pressed into the clay, so as to form sunk cells of ornamental tooling. These cells were carefully filled with finely-prepared slips of other clays, that would burn yellow, buff or dark-brown; and when the whole was dry the piece was carefully smoothed again, and moulded reliefs were attached, or touches of colour were applied. After being fired the ware was glazed, apparently with the ordinary lead glaze of the time carefully prepared and fired again. At a later period the ornament was not inlaid in this elaborate manner, but was simply painted, as indeed it might all have been so far as decorative effect is concerned.
Palissy Ware.—Bernard Palissy was a genius of original talent, but, at the hands of his literary admirers, he has gained a legendary rank as one of the great potters of the world which his pottery does not warrant. He is supposed to have spent sixteen years in the search for the white enamel which was being used all the time in Italy and Spain—probably he was searching for the mystery of Chinese porcelain—and when he settled down to make the “Palissy ware,” he did nothing more than carry to perfection the methods of the village pot-makers of his own district. On a hard-fired red clay he disposed groups of moulded plants, shells, fish and reptiles, painted them with crude green, brown and yellow colours, and glazed the whole with a well-prepared lead glaze. His style soon had numerous imitators, like A. Cléricy and B. de Blémont, who executed works quite as good as those of their master; but their works also vanished and left no permanent impression on the general trend of French pottery.
Meantime Italian, and, it may be, Spanish potters strayed over the French border and attempted to introduce the manufacture of their tin-enamelled wares; for we know of the works of Gambin and Tardessir of Faenza, established at Lyons about 1556; of Sigalon at Nîmes in 1548; of Jehan Ferro at Nantes about 1580, and other sporadic efforts. The needed impetus came, however, when the Mantuan duke, Louis de Gonzague, became duke of Nevers in 1565; and we find Italian majolists, working under princely patronage, planting their decadent art in the centre of France. The first efforts met with little success until, with the appearance of the Conrades from Savona, who were domiciled in Nevers in 1602, we get the genuine ware of Nevers. Naturally the first productions, whether of the Conrades or their predecessors, were in the style of the debased majolica of Savona, but the body and glaze of the ware is harder, the colours are not so rich, and the execution is less spirited. The first departure from Italian traditions is seen in the ware of the so-called “Persian style” of Nevers—probably adopted from contemporary work in Limoges enamels on metal—where conventional and fanciful designs of flowers and foliage, birds, animals or figures were thickly raised in white enamel on a ground of bright, intense cobalt-blue glaze. After the middle of the 17th century the Italian style of design appears to have been entirely replaced by pseudo-oriental patterns painted in blue or in polychrome, but really imitated from the “Delft” copies of Chinese and Japanese porcelain. When Rouen and Moustiers became famous for their distinctive wares Nevers copied their designs also, and on a gradually descending scale the manufacture continued to the end of the 18th century, when France was flooded with the rudeFaiences patriotiquesfrom this centre.
The genuine French tin-enamelled ware, freed from the traces of Italian influence, first developed itself at Rouen under the famous Poterats in the later part of the 17th century. A new scheme of ornamentation was gradually evolved in the daintily-designed scalloped and radiating patterns adapted from oriental fabrics, lace and needlework, and from the ornamental devices of contemporary printers. These designs, having been skilfully drawn on the pieces, were filled in with bright blue, strong yellow, light green, or a bright bricky-red in palpable relief, applied as flat washes or in fine lines; and the result was a gay and sparkling ware much superior in decorative value to the later Italian majolicas (see fig. 49). So successful was this Rouen ware that rival factories were quickly started at Saint Cloud, Sinceny,Quimper, Lille, and other places in the north. Saint Cloud and Lille made fine pottery of this class at the end of the 17th and in the early 18th century. It was imitated at Nevers, the potters’ marks shown being those of J. Bourdu and H. Borne. In the south of France, Pierre Clérissy established the industry at Moustiers in 1686, and, though the early Moustiers ware bears a strong resemblance to the debased Italian majolica of the time, the Moustiers painters soon left that behind, and on a glaze of inimitable whiteness and softness they deftly pencilled blue patterns based on the engravings of designs after Berain, Marot and Toro. At a later date Olerys, who had been to Alcora to introduce the French faience into Spain, returned to Moustiers and introduced a pale polychrome style very inferior to that of Rouen. These pieces are covered with patterns outlined in blue and filled in with yellow, pale green and light purple. Olerys is also said to have introduced the grotesque style of Moustiers, founded on the caricatures of Callot. Other factories were started from Moustiers, such as those at Apt, Ardus and Montauban, and even at Narbonne, Bordeaux and Clermont-Ferrand; just as the northern factories had sprung from Rouen.
We have already seen at Nevers the introduction of patterns in the Chinese style, and the same course was increasingly followed at all the French factories during the 18th century. At Strassburg a fresh impetus was given in this direction when, about 1721, Charles Hannong introduced the practice of painting his white tin-enamelled ware with the on-glaze colours used by the porcelain painters. This process enabled the French potter to produce many colours unobtainable by his older process, and moreover helped him to make his wares look more like the coveted porcelain, then becoming the rage all over Europe. This new departure marks the end of the best period of French faience, but so successfully did it meet the demands of the time that it gradually displaced the old method of decoration where the colours were painted on the raw glaze and fired along with it. Factories sprang up for the manufacture of this new ware in the first half of the 18th century at Niederviller, Lunéville and Sceaux, and it was quickly adopted by the older factories at Rouen, Sinceny, Marseilles, &c. With its general adoption the old French faience, developed from the Italian stock, departed, to make way for a tin-enamelled imitation offamille-roseporcelain. But this last style was not of long life. The wealthy classes were no longer patrons of pottery but of porcelain, and when, after 1786, the newly perfected English earthenware was thrown upon the French market, the French faience-makers had to give up their works, or adopt the manufacture of this neater and, for domestic purposes, more suitable form of pottery. This change, together with the disturbances of revolutionary times, brought artistic pottery in France to a standstill, and we shall treat of its revival during the last forty or fifty years in a subsequent section.
Collections.—The Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum contain typical examples; but not such collections as are to be seen in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, the museum at Sèvres, or the French provincial museums at Rouen, Limoges, Marseilles, Lille, St Omer, &c.Literature.—Deck,La Faience(Paris, 1887); Gasnault and Garnier,French Pottery(Victoria and Albert Museum Handbooks, 1884); Le Breton,Le Musée céramique de Rouen(Rouen, 1883); Milet, (?)Historique de la faience et de la porcelaine de Rouen(Rouen, 1898); Pottier,Histoire de la faience de Rouen(Amiens, 1870); L’Abbé H. Requin,Histoire de la faience artistique de Moustiers, tome I^er (Paris, 1903); M.L. Solon,The Old French Faience(London, 1903)—the best survey of the whole subject, with a very full bibliography. The various volumes of theGazette des beaux-artscontain many valuable original articles.
Collections.—The Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum contain typical examples; but not such collections as are to be seen in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, the museum at Sèvres, or the French provincial museums at Rouen, Limoges, Marseilles, Lille, St Omer, &c.
Literature.—Deck,La Faience(Paris, 1887); Gasnault and Garnier,French Pottery(Victoria and Albert Museum Handbooks, 1884); Le Breton,Le Musée céramique de Rouen(Rouen, 1883); Milet, (?)Historique de la faience et de la porcelaine de Rouen(Rouen, 1898); Pottier,Histoire de la faience de Rouen(Amiens, 1870); L’Abbé H. Requin,Histoire de la faience artistique de Moustiers, tome I^er (Paris, 1903); M.L. Solon,The Old French Faience(London, 1903)—the best survey of the whole subject, with a very full bibliography. The various volumes of theGazette des beaux-artscontain many valuable original articles.
(W. B.*)
German, Dutch and Scandinavian Pottery
In northern Europe until the time of the Renaissance the making of tiles is the only branch of the potter’s craft of artistic rank. The pavement tiles of Germany of the Gothic period, examples of which have been found in the valley of the Rhine from Constance to Cologne, often bear designs of foliage or grotesque animals full of character and spirit. Their decoration is effected either by impression with a stamp of wood or clay, or by “pressing” the tile in a mould to produce a design in relief. The surface is sometimes protected by a lead glaze—green, brown or yellow—but is generally left unglazed.
Glazed tiles with relief ornament were also made as early as the 14th century for the construction of stoves, such as have continued in use in Germany to the present day. About 1500 a development took place in the combination of glazes of different colours on a single tile. In the middle of the 16th century Renaissance ornament appears in place of Gothic canopies and tracery, and blue and white enamels begin to be used in combination with lead glazes of other colours. Figures in the costume of the period, or shields of arms, in round-arched niches are a favourite motive alike in the stove tiles and in the wares of similar technique known asHafnergefässe, which have been wrongly attributed to Hirsvogel of Nuremberg. These were made not only in that city but also in Silesia and at Salzburg, Steyr, and elsewhere in Upper Austria; their manufacture continued into the 18th century.
Imitations of Italian majolica with polychrome painting on a white enamelled ground were first made in southern Germany about 1525, and it is with these wares that the name of Hirsvogel should really be associated. The same style survived for more than a century and a half in the stoves and pottery made by the Pfau family at Winterthur in Switzerland, from the end of the 16th century onwards. An interesting development is exhibited by certain rare productions, of Silesian origin, dating from about 1550, with decorations in coloured enamels which are prevented from flowing together by a strong outline incised in the clay.
Stoneware.—The most important feature of the history of German pottery is the development of stoneware along the valley of the Rhine. This ware is of a highly refractory white or grey body of intense hardness, glazed by the introduction of salt into the kiln when the highest temperature was reached. It was exported in large quantities through the markets of Cologne and Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) to England, France and other parts of northern Europe. The frequent occurrence in its decoration of the arms of foreign cities and princes shows that the German potters were alive to the requirements of foreign customers.
The oldest centre of this manufacture seems to have been at Siegburg near Coblenz, where the white stoneware peculiar to the neighbourhood, made from local clay, must have been made and exported in considerable quantities at least as early as the 15th century; plain beer-jugs of that date with cylindrical neck and slightly swelling body have been unearthed in London and the eastern counties of England. In the 16th century an artistic development took place, and the potters were formed into an exclusive gild under stringent regulations. The manufacture lasted till the sack of the town by the Swedes in 1632, subsequent attempts to re-establish it being unsuccessful. This ware, of a creamy white colour, generally thinly glazed and only rarely coloured by staining with cobalt blue, is decorated by impression with small stamps or by the application of reliefs pressed from separate moulds. The motives include sacred and classical figure subjects, portraits of contemporary sovereigns, and armorial bearings, with accessory foliage in which a survival of Gothic feeling is often perceptible. Characteristic forms are the high tankard (Schnelle) and the ewer with long spout (Schnabelkrug), but the fancy of the potter also found expression in various quaint or extravagant forms.
At Raeren in the duchy of Limburg this industry attained importance about 1550, and was continued for over seventy years; 1539 is the earliest date known to occur on this ware. The pieces were of two kinds, brown-glazed and grey; the latter usually decorated with blue. The favourite form is a baluster-shaped jug with heraldic designs or a frieze of figures round the middle. The subjects are from Scripture history or contemporary peasant life as interpreted by Hans Sebald Beham and the German and French “Little Masters.” Examples are knownbearing dates and names or initials of mould-cutters, among them Ian Emens and Baldem Mennicken; but it must not always be inferred that a piece is as old as the date introduced in its decoration, for the same set of moulds might be used for many years.
Another important centre in the 16th century was at Frechen near Cologne. Round-bellied jugs known asBartmänner, from the bearded mask applied in front of the neck, covered with a brown glaze, which in later examples is often coagulated into thick spots, were first made here towards the end of the 15th century, and continued to be the staple product well into the 17th. The jugs of this type, known as Greybeards or Bellarmines, which were exported in profusion to England, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, were mostly made here. At Cologne itself there were also factories, probably before the 16th century, the later productions of which resemble those of Frechen.
During the 17th and 18th centuries the busiest stoneware centre was the district surrounding Höhr-Grenzhausen in Nassau known as the Kannebäckerländchen, where artistic ware was being made before 1600. Soon after that date manganese purple was first used in the decoration in addition to cobalt blue, and henceforward colour in combination with impressed and incised ornament tended more and more to supersede decoration in relief. Figure subjects gave place to rosettes, foliage on wavy stems, and geometrical patterns. Vessels of large size and fantastic shape appear beside the standard forms of the earlier factories. In the 18th century the forms of beer-vessels became stereotyped in the globular jug with cylindrical neck and the cylindrical tankard, while tea and coffee pots, inkstands and other vessels, hitherto unknown, began to be made. A stoneware manufacture dating back to the middle ages existed at Creussen in Bavaria. The productions of this district during the 17th and 18th centuries consist of tankards of squat shape, jugs and jars, of a dark red body, covered with a lustrous dark brown glaze, frequently painted after the first firing in brilliant enamel colours with figures of the Apostles, the electors of the Empire, or other oft-repeated motives. Imitations of the wares of Raeren and Grenzhausen were made at Bouffioulx near Charleroi; other minor centres of the manufacture were at Meckenheim near Cologne and Bunzlau in Silesia.
As in England, so in Holland (by Ary de Milde and certain Delft potters) and in Germany, attempts were made with some success, early in the 18th century, to imitate the Chinese red stoneware, known asboccaros. The early efforts of Böttger, the discoverer of the secret of true porcelain, at Meissen, belong to this category. His red ware is of such hardness that it was cut and polished on the lapidary’s wheel. For some time after the manufacture of red ware at Meissen had ceased, a glazed brown ware of less hard body with gilt or silver decoration was made at Bayreuth. The products of other minor factories of this class cannot now be identified.
Mention may be made of the lead-glazed peasant pottery, such as the bowls produced at Marburg with quaint symbolical devices modelled in relief and applied. Slip-covered wares withgraffiatodecoration, apparently of indigenous growth and not inspired by foreign examples, were made well on into the 19th century near Crefeld and elsewhere in Germany, at Langnau in Switzerland, and by German emigrants in Pennsylvania. In Holland a peculiar green-glazed ware was made in the 18th century with pierced geometrical decoration recalling the Dutch carved woodwork of the period.
Delft.—One of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of pottery is the appearance about 1600, in a highly developed state, of the manufacture of a tin-enamelled earthenware at Delft. It was introduced in that town by Herman Pietersz of Haarlem, but whence he learned his art is unknown. The faience-makers (plateelbackers) were one of the eight crafts of Delft which formed the Gild of St Luke founded in 1611. About 1650 a great development took place, and till the latter years of the 18th century, when its faience was ousted by the more serviceable wares of the English potteries, Delft remained the most important centre of ceramic industry in northern Europe. The ware is of fine buff-coloured clay, dipped after the first firing in a white tin-enamel, which formed the ground for painted decoration; after painting, this was covered with a transparent lead glaze and fired a second time, so that in its technique it belongs to the same class as the painted Italian majolica and the old French faience. At its best it is rightly ranked among the greatest achievements of the potter’s art.
Characteristic of the first period are dishes and plaques in blue monochrome with somewhat overcrowded scenes of popular life in the style of the engravings of Goltzius. Imitations of the oriental porcelain imported by the Dutch East India Company were introduced about 1650 by Aelbregt de Keizer and continued for some time among the finest productions. At the same time the earlier tradition was developed in the finely painted landscapes and portraits of Abraham de Kooge and Frederick van Frytom. Other potters of the best period were Lambartus van Eenhorn and Louwys Fictoor, makers of the large reeded vases with Chinese floral designs in polychrome, Augestyn Reygens, Adriaen Pynacker, and Lucas van Dale; to the last are attributed the pieces with yellow decoration on an olive-green enamel ground. The rare examples with polychrome decoration on a black ground in imitation of Chinese lacquer are the work of Fictoor and Pynacker. With the 18th century came a largely increased demand and a consequent deterioration in artistic quality. The rise of the German porcelain factories had its effect in the introduction of overglaze painting fired in a muffle kiln, typified by the work of the Dextras, father and son. This innovation, by which the Delft potters attempted to compete with European porcelain, contributed to the ruin of their art by eliminating the skilled touch required for painting on the unfired enamel. The ware frequently, but not invariably, bears a mark derived from the sign of the factory (the rose, the peacock, the three bells, &c.), or the name or initials of its proprietor.
A small faience factory was started by Jan van Kerkhoff about 1755 at Arnhem; its productions were of good quality, chiefly in the rococo style, marked with a cock.
The exportation of the Delft ware to Germany occasioned the rise of numerous factories in that country for making faience in imitation of the Dutch. Among these may be named Hanau (founded about 1670), Frankfort and Cassel. Others, such as Kiel and Stralsund, drew their inspiration from the productions of Marseilles and Strassburg (q.v.). At Nuremberg a factory was founded in 1712, which was but little affected by extraneous influences; among its characteristic productions are dishes with sunk decoration in the form of a star, and jugs with long necks and pear-shaped bodies, often spirally fluted. Similar wares were made at Bayreuth. The Dutch and French styles were carried by German potters into Scandinavia; factories were established at Copenhagen in 1722, at Rörstrand and Marieberg near Stockholm in 1728 and 1758, and at Herrebøe in Norway about 1759.
At the close of the 18th century the influence of imported English earthenware was strongly felt. In Holland workshops were established for painting the English cream-coloured ware with subjects suited to the Dutch taste; and in Germany cream-coloured wares andsteingutin imitation of Wedgwood’s productions were manufactured at Cassel, Proskau and elsewhere. The “Delft” ware of Holland during the 17th century was a beautiful decorative ware, in which the Dutch painters caught successfully the spirit, and often the very colour value, of Chinese blue and white porcelain. Its fame spread over the whole of Europe, and its styles were readily imitated by the potters of all other countries who made a similar ware. Even the polychrome Delft, though not nearly so beautiful as the “blue and white,” is strongly decorative, and one sees in the polychrome faience of northern France and of Germany more than a trace of its influence. When this ware was supplanted by English earthenware it was a clear instance of a ware that was technically superior displacing a more artistic product.
Plate VI.
Collections.—For German wares the German museums are naturally best. The museums at Munich and Nuremberg contain splendid collections of the tin-enamelled and peasant wares of South Germany. Cologne has a wonderful collection of the Rhenish stoneware, and Berlin and Hamburg have good general collections. Copenhagen and Stockholm are especially good for Scandinavian wares, and Zürich for Swiss. There are also good collections of German stoneware in the Victoria and Albert and the British museums, and in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, and the museum at Sèvres; but there are no notable collections of the German tin-enamelled wares out of Germany. The wares of Delft may be best studied in the museums at the Hague and Amsterdam. There is an interesting collection at the factory of Thooft and Labouchère in Delft. The principal museums in England, France and Germany all have fair to good collections of this renowned ware.Literature.—For tiles and peasant pottery, see Forrer,Geschichte der europäischen Fliesen-Keramik(Strassburg, 1900; chapters on the Netherlands and Germany); Walcher von Molthein,Bunte Hafnerkeramik der Renaissance in Österreich ob der Enns und Salzburg(Vienna, 1906); Hafner,Das Hafnerhandwerk und die alten Öfen in Winterthur(Winterthur, 1876-1877); Barber,Tulip-ware of the Pennsylvania German Potters(Philadelphia, 1903). For stoneware, see Solon,The Ancient Art Stoneware of the Low Countries and Germany(London, 1892); Van Bastelaer,Les Grès wallons(Mons, 1885). For Böttger’s red ware, see Berling,Das Meissner Porzellan(Leipzig, 1900), chap. iii. For Dutch faience, see Havard,Histoire de la faïence de Delft(Paris, 1878), and article by same author on “La Faïence d’Arnhem” inGazette des beaux-arts, 2nd series, vol. xx. (1879). For German faience, see von Falke,Majolika(Berlin, 1896), and articles by Stieda, “Deutsche Fayencefabriken des 18. Jahrhunderts,” inKeramische Monatshefte, vols. ii. and iii. For Scandinavian pottery, see Nyrop,Danske Fajence og Porcellainsmaerker(Copenhagen, 1881); Stråle,Rörstrand et Marieberg(Stockholm, 1872); Grosch,Herrebøe-Fayencer(Christiania, 1901). Excellent accounts of most branches of the subjects are given by Brinckmann,Das hamburgische Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe(Hamburg, 1894).
Collections.—For German wares the German museums are naturally best. The museums at Munich and Nuremberg contain splendid collections of the tin-enamelled and peasant wares of South Germany. Cologne has a wonderful collection of the Rhenish stoneware, and Berlin and Hamburg have good general collections. Copenhagen and Stockholm are especially good for Scandinavian wares, and Zürich for Swiss. There are also good collections of German stoneware in the Victoria and Albert and the British museums, and in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, and the museum at Sèvres; but there are no notable collections of the German tin-enamelled wares out of Germany. The wares of Delft may be best studied in the museums at the Hague and Amsterdam. There is an interesting collection at the factory of Thooft and Labouchère in Delft. The principal museums in England, France and Germany all have fair to good collections of this renowned ware.
Literature.—For tiles and peasant pottery, see Forrer,Geschichte der europäischen Fliesen-Keramik(Strassburg, 1900; chapters on the Netherlands and Germany); Walcher von Molthein,Bunte Hafnerkeramik der Renaissance in Österreich ob der Enns und Salzburg(Vienna, 1906); Hafner,Das Hafnerhandwerk und die alten Öfen in Winterthur(Winterthur, 1876-1877); Barber,Tulip-ware of the Pennsylvania German Potters(Philadelphia, 1903). For stoneware, see Solon,The Ancient Art Stoneware of the Low Countries and Germany(London, 1892); Van Bastelaer,Les Grès wallons(Mons, 1885). For Böttger’s red ware, see Berling,Das Meissner Porzellan(Leipzig, 1900), chap. iii. For Dutch faience, see Havard,Histoire de la faïence de Delft(Paris, 1878), and article by same author on “La Faïence d’Arnhem” inGazette des beaux-arts, 2nd series, vol. xx. (1879). For German faience, see von Falke,Majolika(Berlin, 1896), and articles by Stieda, “Deutsche Fayencefabriken des 18. Jahrhunderts,” inKeramische Monatshefte, vols. ii. and iii. For Scandinavian pottery, see Nyrop,Danske Fajence og Porcellainsmaerker(Copenhagen, 1881); Stråle,Rörstrand et Marieberg(Stockholm, 1872); Grosch,Herrebøe-Fayencer(Christiania, 1901). Excellent accounts of most branches of the subjects are given by Brinckmann,Das hamburgische Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe(Hamburg, 1894).
(B. Ra.)
Later Wares of Spain and Portugal
We shall only deal at length here with those important kinds of pottery that have exerted real influence on the historical development of the art. Offshoots from the main stem that have developed little or no individuality can only be briefly mentioned. When the characteristic Spanish-Moorish lustre wares ceased to be desired by the wealthy they rapidly sank into insignificance, though as a decorative peasant pottery their manufacture never really ceased and has been revived again in our day. The course of pottery importation was changed and the now fashionable Italian majolica was brought into Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, as Hispano-Moresque wares had followed the opposite course two centuries earlier. Besides the influence which these imported wares had on the Spanish potters, a number of wandering Italian majolists found their way into Spain, so that we find the use of painted colour, particularly blue, yellow, orange, green and purple, making its appearance at various centres, around Valencia, at Triana near Seville, &c., but the most important manufacture was at Talavera in the centre of the peninsula. The best of this ware recalls the late Italian majolica of Savona, and the influence of Chinese porcelain designs, probably filtered through to the Spanish potters by the then popular enamelled Delft wares, is very apparent. The potteries of Talavera are mentioned as early as 1560, and they continued at work, with varying fortunes, down to the end of the 18th century. Many and varied wares were produced, including tiles as well as pottery; the most common pottery pieces are dishes, bowls, vases,tinajas, holy-water vessels, drug-pots, and hanging flower vases, together with moulded and painted snails, owls, dogs, oranges, almonds, walnuts, and every kind of fruit. Apart from the poorer colour the baroque style of ornament also rendered the ware much inferior to that of Italy or of France. The popular Talavera wares were imitated elsewhere in Spain, and a number of factories existed at Toledo in the 17th century, but their wares are very inferior. In the 18th century, besides debased imitations of this ware, some coarse but striking pottery was made at Puente del Arzobispo near Toledo.
An interesting offshoot from the Talavera potteries is to be found in the tin-enamelled wares made at Puebla, Mexico, from the early 17th century. It is said that Spanish potters were settled at this place by the Dominicans soon after 1600; and the making of a debased form of Spanish majolica continued there for nearly two centuries. See Barber’s “Tin-Enamelled Pottery,”Bulletin of the Philadelphia Museum, 1907. During the 18th century determined efforts were made by King Charles III. and by the famous Count Aranda to improve the Spanish pottery wares, as well as to introduce the manufacture of porcelain. The efforts of the king led to the foundation of the porcelain works at Buen Retiro near Madrid, which will be mentioned later, and considerable success also attended the revival of strong copper lustre, like that of the late Hispano-Moresque wares; but the finest tin-enamelled wares were those made at Alcora in the important factory founded by Count Aranda in 1726, which continued in operation down to the French wars. For his purposes the count brought from Moustiers, then one of the famous French pottery centres (see above), Joseph Olerys, a well-known pot-painter. He went to Alcora as chief draughtsman and designer, having charge of a number of Spanish potters and painters. Olerys introduced the Moustiers style of decoration, and the glaze and body of the Alcora wares of the best period recall the fine quality of Moustiers faience. It is only fair to add that Olerys in his turn learnt the use of various delicate yellow and green colours from the Spaniards, and when he returned to France in 1737, having acquitted himself most honourably, he introduced this new style of delicate polychrome decoration at Moustiers. The mixture of motives and ideas that animated the duke and his potters may be seen by the following list of wares produced about 1750. Vases of different shapes; small teapots; teapots and covers, Chinese fashion; teapots and covers, Dutch fashion; cruets, Chinese style; entrée dishes; salt-cellars, Chinese style;escudillas(bowls) of Constantinople;barquillos(sauce-bowls), Chinese style; cups, plates, and saucers of different kinds with good painted borders in imitation of lace-work, and finally fruit-stands, salad-bowls and dishes, trays and refrigerators. Later in the century the manufacture of porcelain was introduced here, as well as white earthenware made in imitation of the productions of Wedgwood, and the tin-enamelled wares flickered out in Spain as they did elsewhere.
The manufacture of a kind of debased majolica was also practised in Portugal from the 16th century down to our own times; but the ware never attained to any distinction and is little known outside that country. The best-known specimens were made at Rato, near Lisbon, where a factory was founded in 1767 under the patronage of the court.
Mention must be made of the unglazed native pottery of Spain and Portugal, for wine-jars, water-jars and bottles, cooking pots, and other domestic utensils are still made in these countries for ordinary domestic use, in traditional forms and by methods of the most primitive kind. Many of these vessels, especially thetinajas(wine-jars) and water-coolers, are based on ancient, classical or Arab forms, and in every country market-place it is still common to see groups of vessels, in unglazed pottery of fine shape and finish, exposed for sale—a very different state of things from what obtains in France, Germany, and particularly in England, where the primitive methods of the peasant are being imitated by those who ought to know better. From the 16th to the 18th century a special kind of unglazed pottery vessels known asbuccaroswas extensively made both in Spain and Portugal. The body of the ware is unglazed, whitish, black or red, according to the special kind of clay. The curious point about this ware is that, if we may believe contemporary documents, the vessels were delicately scented, like a ware imported from Mexico; and the soft vessels are said to have been eaten—a custom common enough in certain parts of Central and Southern America. (See M.L. Solon,The Noble Buccaros, 1896.)