Part 24 (2/2)

One of the Burslem stoneware potters between 1710 and 1715 made what he called ”freckled ware.”[184] Possibly this describes a sherd of a thin-walled mug from Marlborough (USNM 59.1636) which is coated with white slip inside and is finely speckled, or ”freckled,” in brown on the outside. Its body is the gray of the drab stoneware, but with a high content of micaceous and siliceous sand. Simeon Shaw, the early 19th-century historian of the Staffords.h.i.+re potteries, a.s.serted that what he called ”Crouch” ware was first made of brick clay and fine sand in 1690, and by 1702 of dark-gray clay and sand.[185] Although his dates are questioned by modern authorities, his order of the progressive degrees of refinement in the paste are acceptable as he suggests them.

In respect to the Marlborough sherd, although it is coa.r.s.er than the white-coated fragments described above, it answers very well Shaw's description of sandy-gray ”Crouch” ware.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 25.--Drab-stoneware mug fragment, rim coated with iron oxide. Staffords.h.i.+re, 1720-30. Same size. (USNM 59.1893.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 26.--Wheel-turned cover of white, salt-glazed teapot. Staffords.h.i.+re. Same size. (USNM 59.1622.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 27.--Body sherds of molded, white salt-glazed-ware pitcher or milk jug. Staffords.h.i.+re. Same size. (USNM 59.1894.)]

WHITE SALT-GLAZED WARE.--About 1720 calcined flints were added to the body of the Staffords.h.i.+re stoneware, thus making possible a h.o.m.ogeneous white body that did not require a coating of slip between the body and the glazed surface.[186] With this ware the Staffords.h.i.+re potters came closer to their goal of emulating porcelain.

At Marlborough the earliest examples of this improved ware are found in two sherds with incised decorations that were scratched into the wet clay (USNM 59.1819, Fig. 67b); the incised lines next were filled with powdered cobalt before firing. This technique is known as ”scratch blue,” dated examples of which, existing elsewhere, range from 1724 to 1767. The body in the Marlborough specimens is still rather drab, the whiteness of the later ware not yet having been achieved. No slip was used, however, so that the surface color is a pleasant pale gray. One sherd is from a cup with a slightly flaring rim. The exterior decoration is in the form of floral sprigs, while the inside has a row of double-scalloped lines below the rim. The other fragment is from a saucer. Possibly the cup is part of Mercer's purchase in 1742 of a dozen ”Stone Coffee cups,” for which he paid 18d. In Boston ”White stone Tea-Cups and Saucers” were advertised in 1745, and ”blue and white ...

Stone Ware” in 1751.[187]

A later variant on the ”scratch blue” is a cla.s.s of salt-glazed ware that resembles Westerwald stoneware. Here loops, sworls, and horizontal grooves are scratched into the paste. The cobalt is smeared more or less at random, some of it lying on the surface, some running into the incised channels. This style of decoration was applied mostly to chamber pots but also to small bowls and cups. Fragments of all these forms occurred at Marlborough (fig. 67c).

After 1740 the body was greatly improved, resulting in an attractive whiteware. Many wheel-turned forms were produced, and these were liberally represented at Marlborough in fragments of pitchers, mugs, teapots, teacups, bowls, posset pots, and casters (fig. 67d).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 69.--DELFT PLATE. Lambeth, about 1720. (See ill.

29.)]

In the middle of the 18th century a process was developed for making multiple plaster-of-paris molds from bra.s.s or alabaster matrices[188]

and then casting plates and other vessels in them by pouring in the stoneware clay, diluted in the form of slip. The slip was allowed to dry, and the formed utensil was removed for firing. This molded salt-glazed ware occurs in quant.i.ty in the Marlborough finds, suggesting that there were large sets of it. One design predominates in plates, platters, and soup dishes: wavy edges, borders consisting of panels of diagonal lattices--with stars or dots within the lattices framed in rococo scrolls, and areas of basket-weave designs between the panels. On a large platter rim the lattice-work is plain, somewhat reminiscent of so-called Chinese Chippendale design. The pattern is presumably the design referred to in the _Boston News Letter_ for May 29, 1764: ”To be sold very cheap. Two or three Crates of white Stone Ware, consisting chiefly of the new fas.h.i.+oned basket Plates and Oblong Dishes.”[189] One fragment comes from a cake plate with this border design and a heavily decorated center (fig. 67e).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 70.--DELFT PLATE. Probably Lambeth, about 1730 to 1740. (See ill. 30.)]

Other molded patterns include gadrooning combined with scalloping on a plate-rim sherd. A rim section with molded rococo-scrolled edge is from a ”basket weave” sauceboat. Considerably earlier are pieces of a pitcher or milk jug with a sh.e.l.l design (USNM 59.1894, ill. 27). One rare sherd appears to come from a rectangular teapot or tray. All the white salt-glazed ware from Marlborough represents the serviceable but decorative tableware of everyday use. It must have been purchased during the last 10 years of Mercer's life.

TIN-ENAMELED EARTHENWARE.--The art of glazing earthenware with opaque tin oxide and decorating it with colorful designs was an Islamic innovation which spread throughout the Mediterranean and northward to Holland and England. Practiced in England before the close of the 16th century, it became in the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries a significant source of English tableware, both at home and in America.

Because of its close similarity to the Dutch majolica of Delft, the English version was popularly called ”delftware,” even though made in London, Bristol, or Liverpool.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 28.--English-delftware washbowl sherd.

Blue-dash decoration inside. See figure 68b. Same size. (USNM 60.75.)]

Surprisingly, a minimum of tin-enameled wares was found at Marlborough, with several sherds reflecting the Port Town period. One of the latter shows the lower portion of a heavy, dark-blue floral spray, growing up, apparently, from a flowerpot. A section of foot rim and the contour of the sherd show that this was a 17th-century charger, probably dating from about 1680 (USNM 60.177, fig. 68a). The leaves are painted in the same manner as on a Lambeth fuddling cup.[190] A section of a plate with no foot rim includes an inner border which encircles the central panel design. It consists of two parallel lines with flattened spirals joined in a series between the lines. The glaze is crackled. This probably dates from the same period as the preceding sherd (USNM 60.99, fig.

68a). Sherds from a larger specimen, without decoration, have the same crackled enamel (USNM 59.2059). There is also a fragment decorated with small, blue, fernlike fronds, again suggesting late 17th-century origin (USNM 59.1756, fig. 68a). A small handle, the glaze of which has a pinkish cast, is decorated with blue dashes, and probably was part of a late 17th-century cup (USNM 59.1730, fig. 68a).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 29.--English delftware plate. One-half. See figure 69. (USNM 59.1707.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 30.--English delftware plate. One-half. See figure 70. (USNM 59.1706.)]

Several fragments of narrow rims from plates with blue bands probably date from the first quarter of the 18th century. A reconstructed plate with the simplest of stylized decoration was made at Lambeth about 1720 (USNM 59.1707, fig. 69). This plate has a wavy vine motif around its upward-flaring rim, in which blossoms are suggested by stylized pyramids of three to four blocks formed by brush strokes about 1/4-inch wide, alternating with single blocks. The central motif consists of two crossed stems with a pyramid at each end and two diagonal, block brush strokes intersecting the crossed stems. A large fragment of a washstand bowl also has similar plain, block brush strokes along a border defined by horizontal lines--in this case a triplet of three strokes, one above two, alternating with a single block. Edges of similar brush strokes on the lower portion of the bowl remain on the fragment. Garner shows a Lambeth mug embodying this style of decoration combined with a suggestion of Chinoiserie around the waist. He ascribes to it a date of ”about 1700,” although the block-brush-stroke device, with variations, was practiced until the 1760's at Lambeth.[191] The Marlborough bowl fragment may be from one of the ”2 pottle Basons” bought by Mercer in 1744 (fig. 68b, ill. 28).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 31.--Delftware ointment pot. Bluish-white tin-enamel glaze. One-half. (USNM 59.1842.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration 32.--Sherds of black basaltes ware. Same size. (USNM 59.2021.)]

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