Editing English delftware

{{Short description|Tin-glazed pottery}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
[[File:BLW Dish (2).jpg|thumb|English delftware dish, 1638, probably by Richard Irons, Southwark, London ([[Victoria and Albert Museum]])]]
[[File:Wine Bottle, dated 1645, London, tin-glazed earthenware - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC01242.JPG |thumb|Wine Bottle, dated 1645, London]]
 
'''English delftware''' is [[tin-glazed pottery]] made in Britain and Ireland between about 1550 and the late 18th century.  The main centres of production were [[London]], [[Bristol]] and [[Liverpool]] with smaller centres at [[Lancaster, Lancashire|Lancaster]], [[Wincanton]], [[Glasgow]] and [[Dublin]].  English tin-glazed pottery was called "galleyware" or "galliware" and its makers "gallypotters" until the early 18th century; it was given the name [[delftware]] after the tin-glazed pottery from the Netherlands.<ref name=garner>Garner, F.H., ''English Delftware'', Faber and Faber, 1948</ref><ref name=carnegy>Carnegy, Daphne, ''Tin-glazed Earthenware'', A&C Black/Chilton Book Company, 1993, {{ISBN|0-7136-3718-8}}</ref>

Many everyday wares were made: tiles, mugs, drug jars, dishes, wine bottles, [[posset]] pots, salt pots, candlesticks, fuddling cups (that is, ale mugs joined in groups of three, four or five with connecting holes to confuse the drinker), puzzle jugs (similar to fuddling cups), barber's bowls, pill slabs, bleeding bowls, [[porringer]]s and [[flower brick]]s. Humble undecorated items included chamberpots, colanders and small disposable ointment pots (gallipots), dispensed by [[apothecaries]]. Large decorative dishes, often called chargers, were popular, and included much of the most ambitious painting, often stretching the artists to the edge of their capabilities, and beyond.

==The nature of English delftware==
English delftware pottery and its painted decoration is similar in many respects to that from Holland, but its peculiarly English quality has been commented upon: "... there is a relaxed tone and a sprightliness which is preserved throughout the history of English delftware; the overriding mood is provincial and naïve rather than urbane and sophisticated."<ref name=carnegy/> Caiger-Smith describes its mood as "ingenuous, direct, sometimes eccentric";<ref name=caiger/> and Garner talks of its "quite distinctive character".<ref name=garner/>  Its methods and techniques were simpler than those of its continental counterparts.  English tin-glaze potters rarely used the transparent overglaze applied by the more sophisticated Dutch and Italian potters.  The enamels so popular on the continent in the 18th century were used only for a short time at Liverpool, where the so-called Fazackerly wares were made.

==Early wares==
An English delftware jug has been found in [[East Malling]], Kent, with a silver mount [[hallmark]]ed 1550, which is presumed to be the earliest date of manufacture.  (Malling jugs may be seen in the [[Museum of London]] and the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]].)

[[John Stow]]'s ''Survey of London'' (1598) records the arrival in 1567 of two Antwerp potters, Jasper Andries and Jacob Jansen, in [[Norwich]], where they made "Gally Paving Tiles, and vessels for Apothecaries and others, very artificially".<ref name=caiger>Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Tin-glazed Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica, Faience and Delftware'', Faber and Faber, 1973, {{ISBN|0-571-09349-3}}</ref> In 1570 Jansen applied to [[Queen Elizabeth I]] for the sole right to practice "galleypotting" in London and soon set up a workshop at [[Aldgate]] to the east of the city.  There were already other Flemish potters in London, two of them in [[Southwark]] recorded in 1571 as "painters of pottes".<ref name=caiger/><ref>{{Cite book|title=London's delftware industry: the tin-glazed pottery industries of Southwark and Lambeth.|last=Tyler|first=Kieron|display-authors=etal|publisher=MoLAS, London|year=2008|isbn=978-1-901992-76-2}}</ref>

The earliest known piece with an English inscription is a dish dated 1600 in the [[Museum of London]].  It is painted in blue, purple, green, orange and yellow and depicts the Tower of London and Old London Bridge, surrounded by the words, "THE ROSE IS RED THE LEAVES ARE GRENE GOD SAVE ELIZABETH OUR QUEENE" and an Italianate border of masks and leaves.  The rim is decorated with dashes of blue and can be considered the first in series of large decorated dishes so painted and called blue-dash chargers.

==Blue-dash chargers==
[[File:William III chargers.JPG|thumb|left|Two chargers with [[William III of England]]]] 
Blue-dash chargers, usually between about 25 and 35&nbsp;cm in diameter with abstract, floral, religious, patriotic or [http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps337952.jpg&retpage=20594 topographical]{{Dead link|date=August 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} motifs, were produced in quantity by London and Bristol potters until the early 18th century.  As they were kept for decoration on walls, dressers and side-tables, many have survived and they are well represented in museum collections.  Their name comes from the slanting blue dashes round the rim, seen in both examples at the left.<ref>Poole, 26</ref>

One of the most popular decorations on the blue-dash charger was a representation of [[Adam and Eve]] with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, produced from the 1630s to the 1730s.  "The challenge of rendering the anatomy of Adam and Eve was inescapable, and as the subject became more and more freely repeated by painters of less and less competence, most of the anatomy gave trouble, particularly Adam's abdominal muscles, which eventually became grotesque and could not be wholly covered by his fig-leaf."  In later examples, "the images had declined to the level of coloured ''graffiti''; Adam and Eve were cave dwellers, the Tree had become a mere cipher and only the serpent and the fruit proved simple enough to survive debasement."<ref name=caiger/>

==Later wares==
[[File:Bowl, Lambeth Pottery, c. 1760, tin-glazed earthenware - California Palace of the Legion of Honor - DSC07657.JPG|thumb|[[Chinoiserie]] bowl, Lambeth Pottery, c. 1760]]   
Towards the end of the 17th changing taste led to the replacement of apothecary pots, tiles and large dishes by polite tablewares, delicate ornaments, [[punch (drink)|punch bowls]], teapots, cocoa pots and coffee-pots.  The decoration became lighter and more informal.  Changing taste was also reflected in [[chinoiserie]] decoration and greater use of a [[polychrome]] palette.

In Bristol and Lambeth from the mid-18th century there was much use of a technique imported from Italy, ''bianco sopra bianco'' (white-on-white).  The object was covered in a tin-glaze tinted with a small amount of colouring oxide, with decoration over it in white tin-glaze.

The development of [[creamware]], a very white and tough earthenware, by [[Wedgwood]] and other North Staffordshire potters spelled the end of English delftware.  Decoration could be applied to the [[Bisque (pottery)|bisque]] ware from [[Transfer printing|printed transfers]], white pottery could be produced with a clear [[lead]]-glaze, and the result was pottery lighter and more durable than tin-glazed ware.  The north Staffordshire potteries also introduced new wares and industrial techniques that disadvantaged the delftware makers,<ref>Poole, 2, 54, 74-88</ref> and by the 19th century tin-glazed earthenware almost died out until its revival in the form of [[art pottery]] a hundred years later.

==Collections==
{{commons category|English delftware}}
There are good examples of English delftware in the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], the [[British Museum]], the [[Ashmolean Museum]] and the [[Fitzwilliam Museum]].

==References==
<references/>

*Poole, Julia, ''English Pottery'' (Fitzwilliam Museum Handbooks), 1995, Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|0521475201}}
*Dawson, Aileen, ''English & Irish Delftware, 1570-1840'', 2010, London: British Museum, {{ISBN|978-0-7141-2810-8}}

[[Category:English art|delftware]]
[[Category:English pottery|delftware]]