Texture glazes of chicken-skin, fruit-skin, and orange-skin are highly prized, and vellum or egg-shell glazes splashed and marked like Nature's own handiwork in the most beautiful birds' eggs. Or there are metallic effects of peculiar beauty and golden lacquer glazes resembling the old gold lac-work of Chinese and Japanese artists so cunningly imitated by Martin, the French cabinet-maker, in his Vernis-Martin, so beloved of collectors of furniture and fans.
Of purple glazes of the transmutation class some of the richest effects have been obtained in colour and in splashed effects. Wine purple, mulberry, and other alluring tones have burst upon an astonished circle of connoisseurs. Of the flambé specimens it is not too much to say that their like, for which the Chinese potters were so famous, have never been seen before in Europe.
The Havilands of Limoges, Copenhagen, and Sèvres, and Berlin potters, as well as the artists in the Rookwood Pottery in America, have worked in the same field; but it is pleasant to think that English potters have produced greater variety, including Lancastrian lustre ware of wealth of glowing colour not surpassed by the Hispano-Moresque potters nor by the lustrous majolica of the Italian renaissance. To the scientific activity in wresting from the past the lost secrets of the old Chinese potters, a great tribute of praise should be accorded to Mr. William Burton and his brother, Mr. Joseph Burton.
Other workers in the same field of glazes are Mr. Bernard Moore, of London, whose glorious flambé, rich red, and sang-de-bœuf glazes are of unsurpassed beauty. Mr. William de Morgan has for many years been known for his lustrous tiles and work of fine originality and strength. Another pottery known as the Ruskin Pottery conducted by Mr. W. Howson Taylor at West Smethwick, Birmingham, is a bright spot in recent ceramic enterprise, and has won distinction for ware which is of great beauty.
In bringing the story of English earthenware to a conclusion, it is the hope of the writer that the ground has been sufficiently covered to provide an outline history of a complex subject. It may be that much appears that might have been omitted, and that much is omitted that might have appeared within these covers. But it must be allowed that personal tastes play an important part in selection either by the collector or by the student. But in matters of fact and in the mass of details relative to the potters and their wares no pains have been spared to make this little handbook worthy of its subject.
DOULTON STONEWARE JUG.
(Date about 1845. Height 10 inches.)
(In the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey.)