Sep
27
17th Century Antique European and Chinese Porcelain and Pottery
September 27, 2009 |
‘The Rose’ factory was in operation from 1662-1775, and their blue-
and-white plates painted with scenes from the New Testament made a
welcome change from the masses of Delft inspired by Far Eastern
porcelain.
It was the Delft potters who first introduced the five-piece garnitures,
intended for the decoration of high chimney-pieces or the tops of cup-
boards. The set comprised three covered jars, of Chinese form, and two
beakers, with flaring mouths. This form was quickly taken up by the
Chinese potters when producing wares for the European market and
later produced by several 18th century European factories.
It is impossible to discuss Dutch tin-glazed wares without referring to
the prolific manufacture of wall-tiles. Those made during the 17th century
were usually quite thick and decorated in colour with fruit and flowers
with distinctive corner motifs. Tiles of the late 17th century and early
18th century were only about 6 mm (i in) thick and 12.5 cm (5 in) square,
and favoured Biblical illustrations, ships, sea-monsters, mounted
warriors or men-at-arms, sometimes inspired by well-known engravings,
painted in either blue, manganese-purple or a combination of both.
There is quite a lucrative business in Holland today in the manufacture
of ’tiles for the tourist’, often deliberately ‘crazed’ to suggest age.
The Dutch imported great quantities of English salt-glazed stonewares
and cream-coloured earthenwares, which were usually left in an un-
decorated state, ready for enamel decoration to be added on arrival in
Holland. There was also a small production of poor quality creamware
made in Holland for the home market, but few factories could compete
with the quality and low cost of the English exports.
English Delftware
The term English Delftware is rather an inappropriate one, since Flemish
potters were producing tin-glazed earthenware first in Norwich, East
Anglia, and later in London by about 1570 - nearly half a century before
Delft achieved fame. The production of Jacob Jansen (or Johnson), and
other Flemish potters, centred first around Aldgate, in London, neigh-
bouring Southwark becoming a further popular area in the early 17th
century. Lambeth, Brislington, Bristol, Wincanton, Liverpool, Lan-
caster, Glasgow and Dublin were all to become well-known centres of
production. All were noticeably within easy reach of the coast, enabling
the Accessary Cornish tin to be transported by sea. Recent excavations
of me early sites have made attributions to specific areas more accurate
tha n! has formerly been possible.
1 1 ates or dishes decorated with paintings of reigning English monarchs
ery popular with collectors but are also very expensive to acquire,
datable wares are ideal indicators to the forms of border decoration
lies, and so forth, in vogue at a certain period, but the facial likeness
e characters could hardly have met with the approval of the indi-
ls. The majority of the dishes made before the end of the 17th
cerjtjbry had a clear glaze applied to the reverse, to economize on tin, and
the yt usually had a small undercut foot-rim, which would retain a cord
foi hanging purposes. The popular term ‘blue-dash chargers’ refers to
iht blue painted strokes around the rim. ‘Dish’ would in most cases be a
m< re accurate description than ‘charger’.
” he early English and Flemish potters were actively engaged in making
a \ ariety of wares for the use of the apothecary, including wet and dry
driig-pots and pill-slabs. The simply decorated ointment-pots could well
have been made in either the Low Countries or England.
‘ “he popularity of the tulip, and its association with Holland, is seen
on njany dishes made in the last quarter of the 17th century, the style of
pa rting often having much in common with the early Isnik dishes of
Tu f. :ey. Unlike most of the Continental faience potters, the British
counterpart used only high-temperature colours - blue, green, man-
gai (ise-purple, yellow and sometimes a poor quality red.
i unong the most desirable British tin-glazed wares are teawares,
wh ch are extremely rare; flower-bricks, a brick-shaped vessel with
penfprated top; puzzle-jugs, with fretted designs around the neck. The
wares illustrating Lunardi’s balloon ascent of 1784, which took place
doorfields, near the Lambeth factory, are among the class of pieces
ght by today’s collectors, even when in poor condition.
The Potteries’
Di ej to the fragile nature of the material and the consequent difficulties
ansportation by road, the early potter catered primarily for his
diate neighbourhood. But by the middle of the 17th century, the
we now know as Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire, had become
nized as an important pottery centre, with Burslem known as the
her of the Potteries’ or sometimes the ‘Butter-pot Town’, due to the
production of red earthenware jars made for the local farmers for
to market. These same potters could, when the
ion arose, produce what might well be termed ‘English Peasant-
ry’, dishes or drinking vessels which were decorated by trailing
pfslips of contrasting colour on to the body of the unfired ware, their
igns appearing at times to have been suggested by contemporary
lework.
ares of a similar type were also made at Wrotham, in Kent, and in
ondon area, where the decoration often included such pious in-
tions as ‘Watch and Pray’. All these low-fired earthenwares were
red with a thick lead-glaze, which often had disastrous effects upon
ealth of the potter,
Earthenware dish by Thomas Toft.
Highly decorated 17th-century
Coromandel lacquer cabinet mounted on a
carved and silvered gesso stand.
Ceramics
Salt-glazed stontware jug by John Dwight.
Painted Tyrolean bridal bed, inscribed
with the bride name and the date of the
wedding 1771.
for the production of salt-glazed stoneware or ‘Stoneware vulgarly
called Cologne Ware’. Dwight’s main production was of German style
wine bottles made to the order of specific inns. There is little doubt that
he was also occupied in carrying out experiments concerned with the
manufacture of Chinese-type porcelain, which at that time was still only
being produced in the Far East. Some of his fine mugs of about 1680 are
so finely potted, that despite being made of stoneware, they do show a
slight amount of translucency by transmitted light.
Two further important potters working in England during the late
17th century were John and David Elers, born in Utrecht and Amster-
dam. They claimed they acquired their knowledge concerning stoneware
while on the Continent of Europe. The name of Elers is best associated
with high quality red stoneware, which they may have been making while
working for Dwight at Fulham, but which they were definitely producing
at Bradwell Wood, Staffordshire, from about 1693.
German Stoneware and Faience
The most colourful of all German stonewares are the early 17th century
tankards made at Kreussen. They are of a dark-brown salt-glaze,
decorated with brightly painted enamel figures of the Apostles, the
planets, the Electors of the Empire, or hunting-scenes, the decoration
has a great deal in common with that seen on the contemporary glass
made in both Germany and Bohemia. A further form peculiar to the
Kreussen potters is a square or octagonal flask with a metal screw-
stopper (Schraubftashen). In the latter part of the 17th century Freiberg,
in Saxony, was producing a class of stoneware decorated with hand-
carved patterns, sometimes picked out with black, white, red or blue
enamel colours, often so geometrically precise that the designs were
rather dull.
The manufacture of salt-glazed stoneware has continued in Germany
to the present time, but usually confined to these made from a grey-
bodied clay, decorated with a very bright high-temperature blue. Early
German stoneware did not normally bear a recognized factory-mark and
collectors should note that the mark of an impressed jug within a triangle
denotes the work of S. M. Gerz I, who only started making such pieces
in 1857.
Apart from the tiles made from the beginning of the 16th century by
the German stove-maker Hafner, very little use appears to have been
made of tin-glaze and it was early in the 17th century before Hamburg
became well-known as a faience centre, specializing in blue-painted jugs
decorated with the heraldic arms of well-known local families. Their
dishes were invariably painted in imitation of Chinese blue-and-white
porcelain of the Wan Li period (1573-1619).
By the third quarter of the 17th century faience was being made in
both Hanau and Frankfurt of a quality to rival the Delftware of Holland,
both often using an additional clear lead-glaze to achieve a brilliance
akin to that of porcelain. Hanau and Frankfurt faience was sometimes
used by well-known outside decorators (Hausmaler) as a ground for
fine enamel painting. From the mid-17th century until at least the second
quarter of the 18th century, the work of fine painters such as Schaper,
Faber, Rossler, Helmhack, Heel and Schmidt, may often be recognized.
In the 16th century ihe secrets ol’ Venetian glassmaking were reaching
the countries of northern Europe as some of the craftsmen of Murano
managed to escape the restrictions of the Venetian authorities. By the
middle of the 17th century other countries were beginning to develop
their own national styles and this was most apparent in Germany and
Bohemia where a combination of fine artistic style and technical innova-
tions led to their wares being the most sought after in Europe.
Cutting and engraving is Bohemia’s great contribution to glass art.
Ihe revival of this craft is attributed to Caspar Lehman (1570 1622).
lapidary to the art-loving Rudolf II at the court of Prague. Visiting Italian
artisans recalled the work of Cellini with their artefacts in rock crystal
and precious stones, and Lehman was inspired to transfer rock crystal
cutting techniques to the medium of glass. The brittle Venetian soda
glass was quite unsuitable for lapidary work, and it is a remarkable
achievement that Lehman did succeed in his objective although a robust
potash-lime glass was not developed in Bohemia until about 1671). A
splendid armorial beaker of 1605 showing allegorical figures engraved
in a broad stylized fashion at the Industrial Art Museum of Prague is the
only piece signed by Lehman’s hand. The Victoria and Albert Museum
is in possession of an engraved panel attributed to this artist. In 1609
Lehman was granted a monopoly for glass engraving which passed to
his pupil George Schwanhardt (1601 67), who left Prague for Nurem-
berg during the Thirty Years’ War.
Aj talented school of glass engravers sprang up in Nuremberg with
Schwanhardt’s sons George and Henry. H. W. Schmidt and Hermann
Schwinger (1640 S3) as some of the most gifted. The finest engraving is
usually applied to the typical Niirnberg Deckelpokal, a tall covered
goblet of thinnish metal wkh a knopped or hollow baluster stem, or
both, interspersed by several pairs of flat collars or mereses, an un-
mistakable feature. Signatures of engravers are frequently present.
Johann Schaper (1621-70), a Nuremberg decorator of both glass and
china, produced work in a different genre but of equally high standard.
His distinctive technique consisted of delicate enamelling in Schwarzlot
ol landscapes and figures in black or sepia, often seen on glasses so much
his own that they are called Schaper glasses cylindrical beakers on
three flattened ball feet. The same medium is employed by Ignaz Preissler
(r. 1675 1733) who, together with his son. worked for a rich Bohemian
landowner. Count Kolovrat. Preissler, however, already expressed the
Rococo taste of his period with chinoiserie motifs set within garlands
and foliage, hunting scenes and vivacious small figures.