[Cork.
COPPER LUSTRE JUGS.
(43⁄4 in., 63⁄4 in., 71⁄4 in. high.)
XII
LUSTRE WARE
The old Spanish golden red and canary coloured lustrous dishes with Moorish ornamentation, and the wonderful Italian majolica, with its copper and purple and amber surfaces glowing like beaten metal, are probably the early masters from which our English potters took the idea which they adapted to the decoration of their pottery.
In this chapter we shall treat solely of English lustre ware. It is roughly divided into three classes—copper, silver, and gold.
The copper or brown lustre was made at Brislington, near Bristol, as early as 1770. Compared with the Spanish lustre dishes, it is more rudely ornamented and poor and inartistic in form compared with their Arabic designs. Our English copper lustre, or “gilty” ware, as it is called in some parts of the country and in Ireland, may be sub-divided into two classes. The plain copper lustre, in which the jug, or dish, or teapot is entirely covered with the copper lustre; and secondly, the partially lustrous ware, in which some portions of the pottery are in relief and are coloured with some bright pigments, or left white.
GROUP OF COPPER LUSTRE WARE.