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Collectable slip ware ceramics, are created by dipping the object
in pale slip then trailing various colours of slip over the top
of it in intricate patterns
Thomas Toft, who is known to have worked between 1660 and 1680,
is the best know of the 17th century slipware potters and there
is said to be about 30 Toft pieces still known to exist today.
 Another
famous slipware maker of the 'Toft' family, was Ralph Toft, possibly
Thomas Toft's brother or son, who is thought to have worked around
1675. There was also a Cornelius Toft and James Toft. Other potters
working in the style were Ralph Turnor, William Talor, Ralph Simpson
and Richard Meir.
Designs attributed to Thomas Toft include mermaids, unicorns, pelicans,
and also King Charles II and his wife Queen Catherine of Braganza,
and numerous coats of arms. A cross-hatched rim was fairly typical
of his style and is copied by many 20th Century slipware potters,
inlcuding Bernard Leach.
The paul spence and bernard leach pieces shown below show how they
have tried to pay homage to Thomas Toft. Both the borders are pure
Toft, right down to both spence and leachs signatures. The leach
central motif of the jumping rabbit however betrays a Japanese approach
to pattern and image and the spence portrays a more traditional
armorial feel.
Staffordshire trailed slip :
Is a thin, buff-bodied earthenware coated with white and dark slips
and decorated with trailed, combed, or marbled designs. 
Generally, the white slip covers more of the visible surface than
the dark slip. A clear lead glaze gives the piece a yellowish background
color. Sometimes the visible light and dark slip are reversed, producing
a brown vessel with yellow decoration.
Slipware was made in the Staffordshire region from the mid-17th
century and the first well known Staffordshire slipware products
were the elaborately decorated ornamental dishes and chargers popularly
called Toft Ware, after the Toft family of potters.
They were in production by around 1660, and continued to be made
into the 1720s.
By the last quarter of the 17th century, the production of more
utilitarian trailed and combed vessels had begun. These pieces were
mostly intended for poor to middle class kitchens and dining tables,
as well as for use in taverns.
Generally fine, well-executed combed slipwares date to the earlier
colonial period, while coarser versions tend to date later. These
Staffordshire slipwares were widely exported to America until the
1770s, although simple trailed wares continued to be made in England
into the 19th century.
Slipware Decoration
Several steps were involved in decorating staffordshire slipware.
First, the piece was coated with a white or dark
slip and occasionally both colors were used to cover a single vessel.
Next, tubes were used to apply slip in a contrasting
color. This slip was used to create the designs. 
On Toft-type dishes, on pieces with simple designs, and on vessels
with molded reliefs, the decorated surface was usually first coated
with a white slip. Darker slip in several different shades, was
then applied.
On combed or marbled pieces, the dark slip was applied first, then
wide bands of white slip were added. These bands often covered a
large portion of the vessel, so that the finished piece appeared
to have dark designs on a light background.
Sometimes vessels were reverse decorated, with simple yellow designs
on a dark brown or black background. As a general rule, only the
interior of a flatware vessel was decorated, while on many hollowwares
only the exterior was decorated (Cooper 1968; Erickson and Hunter
2001:101-113; Grigsby 1993).
Various techniques were employed to decorate vessels, and were
sometimes used in combination on a single piece. The most basic
technique is called trailing. This entails using a tube or quill
to trail lines or dots of slip across a vessel. Designs included
geometric or abstract patterns, flowers and animals, and human figures.
Initials, words, and dates also appeared. Sometimes, simple dots
predominated, especially on hollowwares. In some cases, small slip
dots were placed on top of lines of slip in a contrasting color,
a process called "jeweling." By the second half of the
18th century, simple straight or wavy line designs were common on
flatwares. The stripes on these pieces tended to get straighter
and wider through time. Many of the "Toft" dishes and
chargers from the 17th and early 18th centuries had a trailed trellis-like
design around their rims (Erickson and Hunter 2001:111; Grigsby
1993:46-56; Noël Hume 1970:135).
 Two
other decorative techniques, combing and marbling, are commonly
found on Staffordshire shards from American sites.
Combing, also known as feathering, was created by drawing a pointed
tool through bands of wet trailed slip, resulting in patterns of
peaks and troughs. It was employed on both flat and hollow form
vessels.
Marbling entailed the twisting, or "joggling," of a vessel
coated with wet trailed slip, which caused the slip trails to run
across the piece and form abstract patterns. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, marbled designs were sometimes called "agate."
Among excavated examples from Williamsburg, marbling is most commonly
seen on flat round dishes, with blotches of green occasionally present.
Marbling can also be found on hollowares.
Combed and marbled designs tended to be more elaborate and fine-grained
on early pieces than on later 18thcentury vessels. The designs on
the earlier pieces also tend to have more of a vertical appearance,
while on the later wares the combing often goes around the vessel
horizontally (Grigsby 1993:17-18, 56-61; Noël Hume 1970:135).
Another decoration technique involved relief impressions. The impressions
came in a vast variety of forms, including dates and words. Animal
and human or anthropomorphic figures were popular. These designs
were stamped or rouletted onto a vessel, or created when a dish
was formed over an incised press mold. Slip was then applied to
the low portions of the reliefs. Sometimes the reliefs remained
unslipped, or the slip was applied in a pattern that did not follow
the relief. Relief decoration developed in the mid-17th century
and continued in use through the mid-18th century, but was most
popular in the late 17th and early 18th centuries (Grigsby 1993:39-45).
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