ENGLISH CHINA

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 146, 15 March 1940, Page 7

ENGLISH CHINA

Exhibition At Dominion Museum ART OF CERAMICS 'Tottery was made in England from the earliest times, though the dining table furnishings of the Elizabethan age would not include china as we understand it today,” said Professor Itaukine Brown, speaking at the opening of the loan collection of English china at the Dominion Museum on Wednesday afternoon. "A good deal of it would consist of wooden bowls and dishes. We still have the wooden bread board, and 1 can remember eating my porridge out vf a wooden bowl. 'China, as we understand the word, came from the Ear East, from which it went to Europe to be imitated as near as might be by the Italians. It was not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that a considerable amount began to be exported from China, and most of the Oriental china found in English homes dates from that period onward. "The Japanese had learned from the Chinese the art of making china or porcelain—as it ought to be called—and this liuari ware had considerable inlltienee on the products of the early English factories —Bow, Chelsea, Worcester, Derby. / "Originally the expression was chinaware, then simply china. We use the word now in a loose manner. When a housewife talks of her china, sire refers to table furnishings and teasets, which almost certainly are not china. Oriental china is really porcelain, and was manufactured from two natural substances known as kaolin and petuntse, the latter being the equivalent of the English china stone. . . . Porcelain is translucent —it lets the light through—earthenware is not. Porcelain, then called hard paste, when broken gives a clear sharp picture like glass. Soft paste, on the other hand—from which most of the ware we call china is made —looks as though mixed with cream, and has almost a greasy feel, while the paintings on it seem to have sunk into, and become one with the paste. An amateur collector has to be familiar with facts like these. Dresden Porcelain. “The introduction of Oriental china in Europe fixed European patterns and imitations; though till the secret of the manufacture of porcelain was discovered by Bottger at Dresden about 1710, potters endeavoured to get' the natural glaze of porcelain by artificial processes, such as covering their products with a glassy coating, or mixing a glassy preparation with the clay. This process produced artificial or soft paste porcelain, like Sevres and the productions of the earlier English factories, biit the latter soon added another ingredient, bone ash, which gave a distinguishing quality to English china.

"True porcelain was first produced at Dresden, when Bottger’s discovery of tire right ingredients for the making of hard paste porcelain formed a landmark in the history of ceramics. . . . Various attempts were made in England to fathom the mystery of real porcelain, but none of these was successful till 171-1, when factories sprang into being at Bow, to be followed by Chelsea, Worcester and Derby. The impetus probably came from the French factories, but English pottery soon made up lost ground, and during the second half of the eighteenth century, was famous all the world over. 11 very soon shook off foreign influence ami became essentially English in character.

"It may not be easy to distinguish the products of Bow, Chelsea and Worcester from each other—knowledge and experience is required for this—but it is easy enough to distinguish English from Continental china. ... Varying Styles. "Though different factories had their different styles, certain types of pottery appear to be common to all of them. The most obvious instance of what I mean is the old blue and white china, commonly called the Willow pattern, though the designs are of the most varied character. This type of pottery is one of the most popular to collect, and is an inexpensive hobby, if confined to the more ordinary English "■are. . . . Another type of pottery is one colour pottery—in greens of different hues and intensities, like the apple green of Worcester, the grass green of Chelsea, or in rose colour such as the wonderful Rose Pompadour of Sevres, Hie claret colour of Chelsea, and the pale pink of Derby. "If this exhibition of English china inspires us, even in a humble degree, to attempt- to introduce beauty and artistic feeling into our daily lives, it will not have been in vain.”