In stoneware—which, like every other branch of the ceramic art, has made great progress during the last twenty or thirty years, and has been made applicable to scores of purposes never dreamed of by the potters of old—Messrs. Doulton produce, to a very large extent, bottles, jars, pitchers, and jugs; troughs and pans; feet, carriage, bed, and other warmers; barrels and taps; filters, filter-stands, and drip-pans, and every possible variety of household vessels. Besides these, force-pumps, retorts, receivers, condensing-worms, still-heads, evaporating dishes and pans, filtering-funnels, percolators, and every other conceivable kind of chemical and manufacturing vessels and apparatus, as well as drain-pipes, gullies, sinks, and sanitary goods, are largely made.
Many of the productions in this stoneware are of extremely artistic character, and evince a purity of taste which is highly meritorious. Some of the jugs and tankards, from antique examples, and which are produced both in brown, blue, claret, and fine white stoneware, are remarkably chaste and elegant, and remind one of the best periods of German and Flemish art. The forms are admirable, and the decorations, whether foliage or animal, incised or in relief, are always thoroughly well considered, and especially adapted to the material, the mode of production, and the use of the object. “There are no affected imitations of antique types. The spirit of true design is caught with admirable perception and insight, and when colour is introduced, it is done sparingly, and with a view to enhance the form of the object and the natural beauty of the material, rather than to conceal either the one or the other.”
Fig. 358.—Group of Doulton Ware.
In terra-cotta, Messrs. Doulton’s works rank high, both for the beauty of their productions, the variety of designs they have introduced, and the durability and excellence of their material. In vases for gardens, &c.—the finest of which is their Amazon vase (Fig. [354]) sent to the Exhibition of 1871—Messrs. Doulton produce a large number of exquisite patterns, as they do also of pedestals, fountains, garden-seats, flower-boxes, and vases, fern-cases, flower-pendants, mignionette-boxes, brackets, terminals, &c., which are all characterized by extreme excellence of design and workmanship. In statuary and architectural decorations the productions consist of figures, busts, and medallions; keystones, arches, trusses, and string-courses; capitals, bases, and finials; window and door heads and jambs; rain-water heads, of marvellously bold and effective design; parapets and balustrades; panels of coloured stoneware and terra-cotta, modelled in very high relief, and mostly of scriptural subjects, for out-door decoration; tiles and bosses of endless design—some ornamented in the sgraffito style, and others richly coloured; and everything requisite for the architect or the builder. Of terra-cotta flower-pots and fern-cases a large variety are made, all elegant in shape—some ornamented with masks and medallions, and others with vegetable composition; and of brackets and pendants the specimens are very graceful. Painting on pottery has also of late been introduced into this manufactory with very good results.
One class of objects to which attention should be called, presents, in ordinary clays, adaptations in which is conspicuous all the play of the chastest Greek contours, with all the forms dear to successive generations of housewives before the revival set in. Prominent are claret cups, loving cups, hot and cold water jugs, flower vases, candlesticks, hunting jugs, pitchers, and inkstands, with a great variety of other vessels. “What particularly arrests the eye in this branch of the manufacture is, that each object has a style which now takes us back to the flowery periods of Doric and Etruscan forms, now to the days of mediæval hospitalities, or to modern instances, by vessels of form and capacity which would delight even the hearts of the notoriously beer-loving Burschenschaft of Jena. And it is necessary to explain that, as these works are not the results of the common course of earthenware production, it has cost much thought and the exercise of much knowledge and ingenuity to appoint a confederacy of labour so particularly qualified as shall work successfully to this special end.” The ornament is principally the sgraffimento, or incised outline, which is effected sometimes as soon as the vessel leaves the wheel, or more generally after it has been allowed partially to dry to a consistency which will allow of its being handled, though yet sufficiently soft to admit of being easily worked upon. To the designs thus engraved in outline, especially to the leafage, colour is applied with an ordinary water-colour brush, and burnt in. This ware is called “Doulton ware,” or “Sgraffito ware,” and no two pieces are formed alike. With regard to the body it will be sufficient to say that the great strength of stoneware in comparison with that of earthenware, and also its perfect cleanliness, have secured its adoption, whether produced by this or any of the other eminent firms who manufacture it, in all kinds of appliances in connection with drainage and sanitary engineering; and the perfect resistance it offers to the strongest acids, proves the material to be admirably fitted for the manufacture of every kind of vessel and apparatus employed in trades depending in any degree on chemical operations.
Fore Street.—A manufactory of various kinds of pottery existed here in the beginning of the present century, and was carried on by Mr. Richard Waters, who in June, 1811, took out a patent for “a new method of manufacturing pottery ware.” First, “in the fabrication of various articles of considerable magnitude,” “instead of throwing or moulding them on a revolving table, the clay is made into sheets and then applied upon moulds and finished, by beating or pressure, or by turning while in a revolving state;” second, forming “delf-ware pots and other articles by compression of the clay between suitable moulds;” third, “making or clouding the ‘Welsh ware,’ by using a number of pipes instead of one in distributing the colour;” fourth, “making earthenware jambs, tiles for facing houses, and for paving hearths, balustrades, balconies, and bricks vein-coloured, variegated either by the last process or by putting together masses differing from each other,” and in the admixture of stony or metallic or other mineral substances, so as to differ in their colours and appearance when baked; fifth, by this process making “figures, statues, ornaments, armorial bearings, and the like;” sixth, by this process making “stone mortars and pestles, cisterns, coffins, worms for distillers’ use, tiles, with a hook on the back instead of a knob, also with a higher edge and deeper return than usual.”
Imperial Pottery.—Another pottery at Lambeth was that of Messrs. Green & Co., which in 1858 passed, by purchase, into the hands of Mr. John Cliff, by whom it was considerably enlarged. Mr. Cliff here brought into use his own “patent kiln for what is known as double glaze or Bristol glaze kiln, and a circular bag for the salt glaze and pipe kiln, since adopted generally.” Here also Carr’s “Disintegrant” was first proved and got to work; and here, under his own eye, Siemens’s gas furnace was tried on pottery. Here also Mr. Cliff brought out, and into work, his patent wheel and patent lathe—two most important improvements in the potter’s art, and said to be the most perfect and convenient machines extant. The works were closed in 1869, through the site being required by the Metropolitan Board of Works for improvements, and Mr. Cliff removed to Runcorn, in Cheshire, where he still continues his manufactory.[55] The works were originally established for the manufacture of common red ware; but after a time Mr. Green added a little salt-glazed ware; and then, as the double glazed gained favour, added it, and made it his principal business, giving up the red ware entirely. Later still, he manufactured drain pipes and a good deal of chemical stoneware; and, besides all the usual articles, filters were here extensively made for the celebrated George Robins, the auctioneer. The old works were many times much injured by fire—being nearly destroyed just before passing into Mr. Cliff’s hands in 1858.
Figs. 359 to 363.—Blanchard’s Terra Cotta, &c.