CHAPTER IV
STONEWARE
Cologne Ware and Bellarmines—John Dwight of Fulham (1638–1703)—The Brothers Elers, working in Staffordshire (1690–1710)—John Astbury (1679–1743)—Thomas Astbury—Fulham Stoneware—Nottingham Stoneware—Prices of Stoneware.
Stoneware in point of date is prior to delft in its beginnings, and it had in its subsequent development a longer life than delft. It has already been shown (Chapter II.) how broken is the history of the evolution of the potter's art in England in the Middle Ages. There are great gaps which divide the period of the mediæval tiles from the more or less peasant pottery known as slip ware. It is not until the seventeenth century had well advanced that the manufacture of stoneware took its place as an industry.
To the beginner it should be explained that stoneware is coated with a glaze by means of common salt. It is extremely hard, and has a surface in old and admired specimens like the skin of an orange being pitted with minute depressions, or in finer and thinner ware being like the surface of leather or chicken skin. The ordinary ginger-beer bottle is stoneware, and although serving in a humble capacity, is often found to be perfect in the technique of salt glazing. In old jugs of seventeenth-century manufacture, the mottled colouring and distinctly pleasing surface varying in tone from warm brown to reddish-yellow, is exceptionally attractive to collectors who import a love for technique into their hobby.
Undoubtedly the Bellarmine, or Greybeard, jug was in use in this country for a considerable period. References abound in old plays. Ben Jonson, in his "Bartholomew Fair" (Act IV.), makes Captain Whit say, "He has wrashled so long with the bottle here, that the man with the beard hash almosht streek up hish heelsh," in simulation of the speech of a man who has well drunken. But it must be concluded that this stoneware, or Cologne ware, was largely imported, and was never greatly made in this country until John Dwight, of Fulham, took out his patent in 1671. There are pieces bearing Elizabethan dates and coats of arms, as, for instance, the small brown cruche in the Schreiber Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, with the initials "E. R." and the date 1594; and the fine Bellarmine jug in the British Museum, with the arms of Queen Elizabeth, and dated 1594. We illustrate a fine stoneware Bellarmine jug, of the late sixteenth century, having a coat of arms with crown and Tudor roses. The character of some of these jugs differs from continental examples. This may have been due to a desire on the part of the consumer for vessels of that type, but there seems some likelihood that the commoner sorts were made here, and it is conjectured that Fulham was the chief place of their manufacture.
STONEWARE JUG. BELLARMINE OR GREYBEARD.
Having arms with Tudor roses. (Late sixteenth century.)
(At British Museum.)
