The dish of Toft’s ware (Fig. 71) is a specimen of the slip decoration, date about 1660. Toft was a potter who had his kiln at Tinker’s Clough, near Newcastle in Staffordshire. His work is decorated with coloured slip on a common red clay, with a wash of white or pipe clay, upon which the decoration was laid in red slip; darker tints were used for the outlines, and sometimes white dots. The lead glaze used gave a yellow tint to the white clay coating.
Fig. 71.—Dish of Slip Ware; by Thomas Toft. (S.K.M.)
Marbled and combed wares, &c., were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which different coloured bodies were mixed in the paste to form a mottled, marbled, or variegated appearance.
Lambeth has been noted for its potteries from about 1660. Lambeth delft comprised such objects as wine jars, candlesticks, posset pots. The ware is of a pale buff tint; the paste is covered with a white tin-glaze or enamel, and a lead glaze over the decoration. Some plates have figure subjects and floriated borders, which seem to be imitations of Italian majolica (Fig. 72). The names of Griffith and Morgan appear as Lambeth potters in the eighteenth century; and the present “Stiff’s” pottery was founded in 1751. The most noted pottery now in London is the manufactory of Messrs. Doulton—"The Lambeth Pottery"—founded in 1811, whose original and beautiful work is so well known to everybody in the present day.
Fig. 72.—Dish of Lambeth Delft. (B.M.)
In Staffordshire pictorial delft ware was made in William III. and Queen Anne’s time, but was of a coarser kind and less pure in the enamel than Lambeth delft.
Stoneware of an extremely hard and translucent kind was made by John Dwight at Fulham, about 1670. He made grey stoneware jugs, flasks, statuettes, and busts. The busts and statuettes were of great excellence. The jugs and tankards were made in imitation of the German “Grès”—the so-called “Grès de Flandres.” These were called in England “Bellarmines,” “longbeards,” or “greybeards,” by way of mockery of the Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who was unpopular with the Protestant party in the reign of James I. (Fig. 73).
Salt-glazed stoneware is still made at the present time at the Fulham works, which are now in possession of Mr. C. J. C. Bailey.