At the close of the 18th century the influence of imported English earthenware was strongly felt. In Holland workshops were established for painting the English cream-coloured ware with subjects suited to the Dutch taste; and in Germany cream-coloured wares and steingut in imitation of Wedgwood’s productions were manufactured at Cassel, Proskau and elsewhere. The “Delft” ware of Holland during the 17th century was a beautiful decorative ware, in which the Dutch painters caught successfully the spirit, and often the very colour value, of Chinese blue and white porcelain. Its fame spread over the whole of Europe, and its styles were readily imitated by the potters of all other countries who made a similar ware. Even the polychrome Delft, though not nearly so beautiful as the “blue and white,” is strongly decorative, and one sees in the polychrome faience of northern France and of Germany more than a trace of its influence. When this ware was supplanted by English earthenware it was a clear instance of a ware that was technically superior displacing a more artistic product.
Plate VI.
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| Calaggiolo: 16th century. | Faenza. Casa Pirota, 1525. |
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| Urbino. Decorated by Orario Fontana. | |
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| Urbino. 1525 (?). A plate of the famous Gonzaga Este service. | Faenza: early 15th century. |
Collections.—For German wares the German museums are naturally best. The museums at Munich and Nuremberg contain splendid collections of the tin-enamelled and peasant wares of South Germany. Cologne has a wonderful collection of the Rhenish stoneware, and Berlin and Hamburg have good general collections. Copenhagen and Stockholm are especially good for Scandinavian wares, and Zürich for Swiss. There are also good collections of German stoneware in the Victoria and Albert and the British museums, and in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, and the museum at Sèvres; but there are no notable collections of the German tin-enamelled wares out of Germany. The wares of Delft may be best studied in the museums at the Hague and Amsterdam. There is an interesting collection at the factory of Thooft and Labouchère in Delft. The principal museums in England, France and Germany all have fair to good collections of this renowned ware.
Literature.—For tiles and peasant pottery, see Forrer, Geschichte der europäischen Fliesen-Keramik (Strassburg, 1900; chapters on the Netherlands and Germany); Walcher von Molthein, Bunte Hafnerkeramik der Renaissance in Österreich ob der Enns und Salzburg (Vienna, 1906); Hafner, Das Hafnerhandwerk und die alten Öfen in Winterthur (Winterthur, 1876-1877); Barber, Tulip-ware of the Pennsylvania German Potters (Philadelphia, 1903). For stoneware, see Solon, The Ancient Art Stoneware of the Low Countries and Germany (London, 1892); Van Bastelaer, Les Grès wallons (Mons, 1885). For Böttger’s red ware, see Berling, Das Meissner Porzellan (Leipzig, 1900), chap. iii. For Dutch faience, see Havard, Histoire de la faïence de Delft (Paris, 1878), and article by same author on “La Faïence d’Arnhem” in Gazette des beaux-arts, 2nd series, vol. xx. (1879). For German faience, see von Falke, Majolika (Berlin, 1896), and articles by Stieda, “Deutsche Fayencefabriken des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Keramische Monatshefte, vols. ii. and iii. For Scandinavian pottery, see Nyrop, Danske Fajence og Porcellainsmaerker (Copenhagen, 1881); Stråle, Rörstrand et Marieberg (Stockholm, 1872); Grosch, Herrebøe-Fayencer (Christiania, 1901). Excellent accounts of most branches of the subjects are given by Brinckmann, Das hamburgische Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe (Hamburg, 1894).
(B. Ra.)
Later Wares of Spain and Portugal
We shall only deal at length here with those important kinds of pottery that have exerted real influence on the historical development of the art. Offshoots from the main stem that have developed little or no individuality can only be briefly mentioned. When the characteristic Spanish-Moorish lustre wares ceased to be desired by the wealthy they rapidly sank into insignificance, though as a decorative peasant pottery their manufacture never really ceased and has been revived again in our day. The course of pottery importation was changed and the now fashionable Italian majolica was brought into Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, as Hispano-Moresque wares had followed the opposite course two centuries earlier. Besides the influence which these imported wares had on the Spanish potters, a number of wandering Italian majolists found their way into Spain, so that we find the use of painted colour, particularly blue, yellow, orange, green and purple, making its appearance at various centres, around Valencia, at Triana near Seville, &c., but the most important manufacture was at Talavera in the centre of the peninsula. The best of this ware recalls the late Italian majolica of Savona, and the influence of Chinese porcelain designs, probably filtered through to the Spanish potters by the then popular enamelled Delft wares, is very apparent. The potteries of Talavera are mentioned as early as 1560, and they continued at work, with varying fortunes, down to the end of the 18th century. Many and varied wares were produced, including tiles as well as pottery; the most common pottery pieces are dishes, bowls, vases, tinajas, holy-water vessels, drug-pots, and hanging flower vases, together with moulded and painted snails, owls, dogs, oranges, almonds, walnuts, and every kind of fruit. Apart from the poorer colour the baroque style of ornament also rendered the ware much inferior to that of Italy or of France. The popular Talavera wares were imitated elsewhere in Spain, and a number of factories existed at Toledo in the 17th century, but their wares are very inferior. In the 18th century, besides debased imitations of this ware, some coarse but striking pottery was made at Puente del Arzobispo near Toledo.
An interesting offshoot from the Talavera potteries is to be found in the tin-enamelled wares made at Puebla, Mexico, from the early 17th century. It is said that Spanish potters were settled at this place by the Dominicans soon after 1600; and the making of a debased form of Spanish majolica continued there for nearly two centuries. See Barber’s “Tin-Enamelled Pottery,” Bulletin of the Philadelphia Museum, 1907. During the 18th century determined efforts were made by King Charles III. and by the famous Count Aranda to improve the Spanish pottery wares, as well as to introduce the manufacture of porcelain. The efforts of the king led to the foundation of the porcelain works at Buen Retiro near Madrid, which will be mentioned later, and considerable success also attended the revival of strong copper lustre, like that of the late Hispano-Moresque wares; but the finest tin-enamelled wares were those made at Alcora in the important factory founded by Count Aranda in 1726, which continued in operation down to the French wars. For his purposes the count brought from Moustiers, then one of the famous French pottery centres (see above), Joseph Olerys, a well-known pot-painter. He went to Alcora as chief draughtsman and designer, having charge of a number of Spanish potters and painters. Olerys introduced the Moustiers style of decoration, and the glaze and body of the Alcora wares of the best period recall the fine quality of Moustiers faience. It is only fair to add that Olerys in his turn learnt the use of various delicate yellow and green colours from the Spaniards, and when he returned to France in 1737, having acquitted himself most honourably, he introduced this new style of delicate polychrome decoration at Moustiers. The mixture of motives and ideas that animated the duke and his potters may be seen by the following list of wares produced about 1750. Vases of different shapes; small teapots; teapots and covers, Chinese fashion; teapots and covers, Dutch fashion; cruets, Chinese style; entrée dishes; salt-cellars, Chinese style; escudillas (bowls) of Constantinople; barquillos (sauce-bowls), Chinese style; cups, plates, and saucers of different kinds with good painted borders in imitation of lace-work, and finally fruit-stands, salad-bowls and dishes, trays and refrigerators. Later in the century the manufacture of porcelain was introduced here, as well as white earthenware made in imitation of the productions of Wedgwood, and the tin-enamelled wares flickered out in Spain as they did elsewhere.