Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made by a potter is also called a pottery. The definition of pottery, used by the ASTM International, is "all fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products." In art history and archaeology, especially of ancient and prehistoric periods, "pottery" often means vessels only, and sculpted figurines of the same material are called "terracottas".
Raku ware is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of chawan tea bowls. It is traditionally characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown, fairly porous vessels, which result from low firing temperatures, lead glazes and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese process, the fired raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and is allowed to cool in the open air.
Farnham is a market town in Surrey, England, within the Borough of Waverley. The town is 36 miles (58 km) south-west of London in the extreme west of Surrey, adjacent to the border with Hampshire. By road, Guildford is 11 miles (17 km) to the east and Winchester a further 28 miles (45 km) along the same axis as London. Farnham is the largest town in Waverley, and one of the five largest conurbations in Surrey. It is of historic interest, with many old buildings, including a number of Georgian houses. Farnham Castle overlooks the town. A short distance south-east of the town centre are the ruins of Waverley Abbey, Moor Park House, Northbrook Park and Mother Ludlam's Cave. Farnham is twinned with Andernach in Germany. It is drained by the River Wey which is navigable only by canoe at this point.
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures. Though definitions vary, porcelain can be divided into three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste, and bone china. The category that an object belongs to depends on the composition of the paste used to make the body of the porcelain object and the firing conditions.
Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. Whether vitrified or not, it is nonporous ; it may or may not be glazed. Historically, around the world, it has been developed after earthenware and before porcelain, and has often been used for high-quality as well as utilitarian wares.
Pottery and porcelain, is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptionally long and successful history of ceramic production. Earthenwares were made as early as the Jōmon period, giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world. Japan is further distinguished by the unusual esteem that ceramics holds within its artistic tradition, owing to the enduring popularity of the tea ceremony.
Celadon is a term for pottery denoting both wares glazed in the jade green celadon color, also known as greenware or "green ware" ), and a type of transparent glaze, often with small cracks, that was first used on greenware, but later used on other porcelains. Celadon originated in China, though the term is purely European, and notable kilns such as the Longquan kiln in Zhejiang province are renowned for their celadon glazes. Celadon production later spread to other parts of East Asia, such as Japan and Korea as well as Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand. Eventually, European potteries produced some pieces, but it was never a major element there. Finer pieces are in porcelain, but both the color and the glaze can be produced in stoneware and earthenware. Most of the earlier Longquan celadon is on the border of stoneware and porcelain, meeting the Chinese but not the European definitions of porcelain.
Pit firing is the oldest known method for the firing of pottery. Examples have been dated as early as 29,000–25,000 BCE, while the earliest known kiln dates to around 6000 BCE, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq. Kilns allow higher temperatures to be reached, and use fuel more efficiently, and have long replaced pit firing as the most widespread method of firing pottery, although the technique still finds limited use amongst certain studio potters and in Africa.
Kakiemon is a style of Japanese porcelain, with overglaze decoration called "enameled" ceramics. It was originally produced at the factories around Arita, in Japan's Hizen province from the Edo period's mid-17th century onwards. The style shares much in common with the Chinese "Famille Verte" style. The quality of its decoration was highly prized in the West and widely imitated by major European porcelain manufacturers during the Rococo period.
Maiolica is tin-glazed pottery decorated in colours on a white background. Italian maiolica dating from the Renaissance period is the most renowned. When depicting historical and mythical scenes, these works were known as istoriato wares. By the late 15th century, multiple locations, mainly in northern and central Italy, were producing sophisticated pieces for a luxury market in Italy and beyond. In France maiolica developed as faience, in the Netherlands and England as delftware, and in Spain as talavera. In English the spelling was anglicised to majolica but the pronunciation usually preserved the vowel with an i as in kite.
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court and for export. Porcelain was a Chinese invention and is so identified with China that it is still called "china" in everyday English usage.
Wrecclesham is a village on the southern outskirts of the large town of Farnham in Surrey, England. Its local government district is the Borough of Waverley.
Tin-glazed pottery is earthenware covered in lead glaze with added tin oxide which is white, shiny and opaque ; usually this provides a background for brightly painted decoration. It has been important in Islamic and European pottery, but very little used in East Asia. The pottery body is usually made of red or buff-colored earthenware and the white glaze imitated Chinese porcelain. The decoration on tin-glazed pottery is usually applied to the unfired glaze surface by brush with metallic oxides, commonly cobalt oxide, copper oxide, iron oxide, manganese dioxide and antimony oxide. The makers of Italian tin-glazed pottery from the late Renaissance blended oxides to produce detailed and realistic polychrome paintings.
Winchcombe Pottery, near Winchcombe in Tewkesbury Borough, North Gloucestershire, is an English craft pottery founded in 1926.
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artefacts in archaeology. Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture and decorate the art ware. Products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as "art pottery". In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery.
The Bovey Tracey Potteries were a collection of potteries in the Bovey Tracey area of Devon, based on the clay from the Bovey Basin. Pottery making developed in the area developed on an industrial scale from around 1750 and lasted for around 200 years under various owners and names.
The Lithgow Valley Colliery and Pottery Site is a heritage-listed former pottery and colliery and now pottery and visitor attraction at Bent Street, Lithgow, City of Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1876 to 1945. It is also known as Lithgow Pottery and Brickworks. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Denise Wren was an Australian-born British studio potter and craftsperson. Wren was one of the first female studio potters in Britain. She studied and taught with the Kingston School of Art, Knox Guild and Camberwell College of Arts. Wren and her family subsequently set up the Oxshott Pottery and wrote on the subjects of ceramics, textiles and making.
Surrey whiteware or Surrey white ware, is a type of lead-glazed pottery produced in Britain from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The white-fired sandy earthenware was produced largely from kilns in Surrey and along the Surrey-Hampshire border. Surrey whitewares were the most commonly used pottery in London during the late medieval period. There are four classes of Surrey whiteware: Kingston-type, Coarse Border ware, Cheam whiteware and Tudor Green ware.
Border ware is a type of post-medieval British pottery commonly used in London during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The lead-glazed, sandy earthenware was produced from kilns along the border between Hampshire and Surrey. There are two classes of Border ware, fine whitewares and fine redwares.
