| There were many potters whose names could | | | | before this excellent salt-glazed material was being |
| not be recognized due the non-availability or only | | | | potted in quantity in the Staffordshire towns, in |
| the availability of their initials which does not help | | | | Liverpool, and elsewhere. Most of the ware, which |
| the collectors to identify the makers of some of | | | | was made not only into domestic articles but also |
| the masterpieces that had been found in different | | | | figures, was ornamented with raised patterns, and |
| parts of the world. | | | | the thin smear of glaze with which it was covered |
| Much of the nineteenth-century ware was | | | | did not clog the delicate lines as a flowing |
| marked by the makers, but often only with initials, | | | | lead-glaze would have done. Both overgraze and |
| which do not help the collector very much. Printed | | | | under glaze colors were used with great effect. |
| pieces usually have the name of the pattern. | | | | While white stoneware was finally unable to |
| Stoneware | | | | withstand the competition of Queen's Ware and |
| Stoneware is a very hard non-porous type of | | | | porcelain, a further refinement of materials and |
| pottery, introduced into England in the sixteenth | | | | technique enabled Wedgwood to produce with it |
| century from Germany. A feature of the ware is | | | | his celebrated jasper ware. This is the pottery |
| that it was glazed by putting common salt into | | | | from which were made the thousands of relief |
| the kiln while it was being fired; thus arises the | | | | portraits, plaques and vases that spread the |
| term salt-glazed stoneware. The resulting pottery | | | | name of their inventor and maker throughout the |
| is hard, strong and watertight, and it can be made | | | | world. In addition to this ware, most familiar when |
| into objects much thinner in body than can | | | | colored blue but made also in pale shades of |
| ordinary clay pottery. | | | | yellow, lilac and green Wedgwood developed a |
| Nottingham was a big centre for making | | | | black stoneware (basaltes), a red stoneware |
| stoneware from the late seventeenth century, | | | | (rosso antico) and a buflf-coloured (cane ware), all |
| and pieces with a hard grey body and a brown | | | | of which contributed to the fame and expansion |
| glaze of orange-peel texture came from there. | | | | of Staffordshire. |
| Many such pieces bear names and dates. Other | | | | It is as well to remember that the descendants |
| factories nearby in Derbyshire made similar wares. | | | | of Josiah Wedgwood are still making jasper and |
| John Dwight founded a factory at Fulham, a | | | | basaltes wares, and have done so continuously |
| suburb of London, in 1671. A number of pieces | | | | since the eighteenth century. The oldest examples |
| made by him, after two centuries in the | | | | reveal their age by the superior fineness of their |
| possession of his family and now in the British and | | | | modeling and the velvet-like smoothness of their |
| Victoria and Albert Museums, are extraordinarily | | | | surface. |
| well modeled, and it has been suggested that | | | | Brown stoneware was made throughout the |
| they are the work of the wood-carver and | | | | nineteenth century, but the productions are far |
| sculptor, Grilling Gibbons. Dwight claimed to have | | | | from exciting. Flasks in the form of politicians and |
| invented a method of making porcelain, but | | | | pistols were made, and a large number of jugs in |
| nothing resembling our modern meaning of the | | | | imitation of seventeenth-century originals often |
| term can be attributed to him. | | | | deceive collectors. |
| In Staffordshire, red stoneware in imitation of | | | | Stoneware was introduced into England in the |
| some imported from China, was made by two | | | | sixteenth century from Germany. This is a glazed |
| Dutch brothers named Elers, who had worked at | | | | ware. Nottingham was a big centre for making |
| one time with Dwight at Fulham. By 1725Dwight's | | | | stoneware from the late seventeenth century. |
| greyish stoneware had been improved in colour | | | | There were some potters who mastered the |
| until it was nearly white, and it was not long | | | | making of the stoneware products. |