Ironstone china, ironstone ware or most commonly just ironstone, is a type of vitreous pottery first made in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century. It is often classed as earthenware [1] [2] although in appearance and properties it is similar to fine stoneware. [3] It was developed in the 19th century by potters in Staffordshire, England, as a cheaper, mass-produced alternative for porcelain. [4]
The formulation quoted in the original patent (Brit. Pat. 3724, 1813) by Charles James Mason, is: 4 parts china clay, 4 parts china stone, 4 parts calcined flint, 3 parts prepared ironstone and a trace of cobalt oxide. However, it has long been known that no ironstone was used; its mention, and the name of the product, was used to suggest high strength. [5]
Ironstone in Britain's Staffordshire potteries was closely associated with the company founded by Mason following his patent of 1813, [1] [6] with the name subsequently becoming generic. [7] The strength of Mason's ironstone body enabled the company to produce ornamental objects of considerable size [8] [9] including vestibule vases 1.5 metres high [10] and mantelpieces assembled from several large sections. [11]
Antique ironstone wares are collectable, and in particular items made by Mason's. [12]
Ironstone was patented by the British potter Mason in 1813. [13] His father, Miles Mason (1752–1822) married the daughter of Richard Farrar, who had a business selling imported Oriental porcelain in London. Subsequently, Mason continued this business, but after the East India Company ceased the bulk importation of Oriental porcelain in 1791 he began to manufacture his own wares. [14] His first manufacturing venture was a partnership with Thomas Wolfe and John Lucock in Liverpool, and he later formed a partnership with George Wolfe to manufacture pottery in Staffordshire. [15]
Subsequently other manufacturers produced ironstone, [12] with James Edwards (1805–1867) of the Dalehall Pottery in Staffordshire also credited as its pioneer. [16] Other sources also attribute the invention of ironstone to William Turner of Longton, [17] and Josiah Spode [18] who is known to have been producing ironstone ware by 1805, "which he exported in immense quantities to France and other countries". [19] The popularity of Spode's ironstone surpassed the traditional faience pottery in France. [18]
A variety of ironstone types was being produced by the mid-19th century. "Derbyshire ironstone" became a particularly popular variety in the 19th century, as well as "yellow ironstone". Patterns with raised edges became popular in the mid-19th century, including "cane-coloured" Derbyshire ironstone. Some of the most well-known and collectable British ironstone manufacturers of the 19th century include: [19]
In the United States, ironstone ware was being manufactured from the 1850s onward. The earliest American ironstone potters were in operation around Trenton, New Jersey. [13] Before this, white ironstone ware was imported to the United States from England, beginning in the 1840s. Undecorated tableware was most popular in the United States, and British potteries produced white ironstone ware, known as "White Ironstone" or "White Granite" ware, for the American market. During the mid-19th century it was the largest export market for Staffordshire's potteries. [20] In the 1860s, British manufacturers began adding agricultural motifs, such as wheat, to their products to appeal to the American market. These patterns became known as "farmers' china" or "threshers' china". Plain white ironstone ware was widely marketed in the United States until the end of the 19th century. [21]
Notable 19th-century ironstone manufacturers in the United States include:
Transfer-printed designs were applied to ironstone by Mason's in an attempt to copy Chinese porcelain cheaply. Transferware is most often in one colour against a white background, such as blue, red, green or brown. Some patterns included detail colours that were added on top of the main transfer after the glaze had been applied. [13]
Transferware designs range from dense patterns that cover the piece, to small motifs applied sparingly to give a delicate appearance, as with floral motifs.
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arise mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures. End applications include tableware, decorative ware such as figurines, and products in technology and industry such as electrical insulators and laboratory ware.
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below 1,200 °C (2,190 °F). Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ceramic glaze, and is used for the great majority of modern domestic earthenware. The main other important types of pottery are porcelain, bone china, and stoneware, all fired at high enough temperatures to vitrify. End applications include tableware, decorative ware such as figurines.
Faience or faïence is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.
Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. End applications include tableware, decorative ware such as vases.
Josiah Spode was an English potter and the founder of the English Spode pottery works which became famous for the high quality of its wares. He is often credited with the establishment of blue underglaze transfer printing in Staffordshire in 1781–84, and with the definition and introduction in c. 1789–91 of the improved formula for bone china which thereafter remained the standard for all English wares of this kind.
Spode is an English brand of pottery and homewares produced by the company of the same name, which is based in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Spode was founded by Josiah Spode (1733–1797) in 1770, and was responsible for perfecting two extremely important techniques that were crucial to the worldwide success of the English pottery industry in the century to follow.
The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall, which is now the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of ceramic production in the early 17th century, due to the local availability of clay, salt, lead and coal.
Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine, in the Netherlands as Engels porselein, and in Italy as terraglia inglese. It was created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, who refined the materials and techniques of salt-glazed earthenware towards a finer, thinner, whiter body with a brilliant glassy lead glaze, which proved so ideal for domestic ware that it supplanted white salt-glaze wares by about 1780. It was popular until the 1840s.
Bone china is a type of ceramic that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate. Bone china is the strongest of the porcelain or china ceramics, having very high mechanical and physical strength and chip resistance, and is known for its high levels of whiteness and translucency. Its high strength allows it to be produced in thinner cross-sections than other types of porcelain. Like stoneware, it is vitrified, but is translucent due to differing mineral properties.
Transfer printing is a method of decorating pottery or other materials using an engraved copper or steel plate from which a monochrome print on paper is taken which is then transferred by pressing onto the ceramic piece. Pottery decorated using the technique is known as transferware or transfer ware.
Portmeirion is a British pottery company based in Stoke-on-Trent, England. They specialise in earthenware tableware.
The Willow pattern is a distinctive and elaborate chinoiserie pattern used on ceramic tableware. It became popular at the end of the 18th century in England when, in its standard form, it was developed by English ceramic artists combining and adapting motifs inspired by fashionable hand-painted blue-and-white wares imported from China. Its creation occurred at a time when mass-production of decorative tableware, at Stoke-on-Trent and elsewhere, was already making use of engraved and printed glaze transfers, rather than hand-painting, for the application of ornament to standardized vessels.
Mintons was a major company in Staffordshire pottery, "Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era", an independent business from 1793 to 1968. It was a leader in ceramic design, working in a number of different ceramic bodies, decorative techniques, and "a glorious pot-pourri of styles - Rococo shapes with Oriental motifs, Classical shapes with Medieval designs and Art Nouveau borders were among the many wonderful concoctions". As well as pottery vessels and sculptures, the firm was a leading manufacturer of tiles and other architectural ceramics, producing work for both the Houses of Parliament and United States Capitol.
A chinaman is a dealer in porcelain and chinaware, especially in 18th-century London, where this was a recognised trade; a "toyman" dealt additionally in fashionable trifles, such as snuffboxes. Chinamen bought large quantities of Chinese export porcelain and Japanese export porcelain landed by the East India Company, who held auctions twice a year in London. The traders then distributed chinaware throughout England.
Pâte-sur-pâte is a French term meaning "paste on paste". It is a method of porcelain decoration in which a relief design is created on an unfired, unglazed body, usually with a coloured body, by applying successive layers of (usually) white porcelain slip with a brush. Once the main shape is built up, it is carved away to give fine detail, before the piece is fired. The work is very painstaking and may take weeks of adding extra layers and allowing them to harden before the next is applied.
Reginald George Haggar (1905–1988) R.I., A.R.C.A., F.R.S.A. was a British ceramic designer. He was born in Ipswich and studied at Ipswich School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1929, he became assistant designer at Mintons pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, rising to art director six months later, a post he held until 1939. Working in water colours and ceramics, his designs reflected both the radical and lyrical elements of the Art Deco style.
Restaurant ware, or most commonly hotelware is vitrified, ceramic tableware which exhibits high mechanical strength and is produced for use in hotels and restaurants. Tableware used in railway dining cars, passenger ships and airlines are also included in this category.
China painting, or porcelain painting, is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcelain, developed in 18th-century Europe. The broader term ceramic painting includes painted decoration on lead-glazed earthenware such as creamware or tin-glazed pottery such as maiolica or faience.
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is a visual art. While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramic art can be created by one person or by a group, in a pottery or a ceramic factory with a group designing and manufacturing the artware.
The Turner family of potters was active in Staffordshire, England 1756-1829. Their manufactures have been compared favourably with, and sometimes confused with, those of Josiah Wedgwood and Sons. Josiah Wedgwood was both a friend and a commercial rival of John Turner the elder, the first notable potter in the family.