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