collecting antique tin glaze ceramics, the history, manufacture and examples.

• The origin of porcelain in europe.
• Antique english porcelain

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• Collecting royal vienna porcelain
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• Collecting moorcroft pottery

Tin glaze ceramics, normally earthenware, known also as delftware or delft, was the first white pottery manufactured in England. It was popular because it resembled Chinese porcelain, which was very expensive and only affordable by the wealthy.

The usual characteristics of tin glaze ceramics are a white surface, due to the mixing of tin oxide in the glaze. A method used in the middle east, since the 9th century.

The glaze was first used in Europe by the Italians in the 12th century for simple painted wares and by the Spanish during the 13th century for elaborate luster wares.

The use of tin glaze spread throughout most of Europe in the following centuries and both Holland and England became centres of tin glaze ceramics production in the 16th and 17th centuries.

By the 1650s, the majority of well known potters in England were Flemish or Dutch, and ideas for decorations had been borrowed from Italian or Oriental painted pottery.

Eventually, English craftsmen established their own tin glaze potteries and began to claim they could imitate dutch or chinese wares.

Although 17th-century tin glaze potters depended chiefly on the country gentry and mercantile classes for business, it did not keep them from responding to changes in taste and fashion.

The types of antique tin glazed ceramics.

Tin-glazed earthenwares are also referred to as delft, majolica, or faience.

Typically, delft includes English and Dutch products. In England, however, the term delft was not in common use until the 18th century; before then tin-glazed earthenware was referred to as galley ware.

Majolica includes Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mexican products, while faience refers mostly to French products.

Some collectors and archaeologists describe lead-backed tin-glazed earthenwares as majolica, and wares with tin-glaze on all surfaces as faience.

English and Dutch delftware (1571 - 1800)
The English tin-glazed or delftware industry was in existence by 1571, when immigrant potters from Antwerp were reported working in Aldgate in London. The production of tin-glazed wares in England grew rapidly from the 1630s on, and constituted one of the most important wares produced during the 17th and 18th centuries. During this period, British tin-glazed wares came to be produced in many centers including London, Bristol, Liverpool, Dublin, and Glasgow (see: Noël Hume 1970, 1977; Austin 1994; Archer 1997).

Majolica (13th – 19th centuries)
Majolica was known in Spain from the 13th century, and its production was established in Mexico and Guatemala by the late 16th century. Four majolica traditions are known including the medieval tradition (16th century Spanish wares), the Chinese popular tradition (wares reflecting Chinese decorative influence), the Italian tradition (reflecting Italian influences), and the Puebla tradition (Mexican wares). Plain, blue on white, and polychrome designs are known for all periods, and polychrome decorated vessels are more common in majolica than in delft. Vessel types commonly include bowls, platos (plates), and albarelos (Spanish drug jars), although storage jars and basins are known for some majolica varieties (see: Deagan 1987).

French Faience (16th – 18th centuries)
The bodies of French tin enameled wares are homogenous, and colored buff, pink, or cream. Most faience was decorated in blue or in the famille verte and famille rose colors of Chinese porcelain. Designs were mostly imitations of those used on Chinese porcelain, but in the second half of the eighteenth century potters used designs inspired by the rococo style of painting incorporating elaborate scrolls and shells. Rouen wares (1775–1780s) were decorated with pale blue on the interior surfaces and dark brown on the exteriors of platters, mugs, cups, saucers, and bowls. Nevers ware has a blue background and white or polychrome overglaze painting. Faience appears sparingly in the archaeological record for Maryland, and what is found dates to the last quarter of the 18th century (see: Waselkov and Walthall 2002).

The types of decoration on tin glaze ceramics.

The glaze is a clear lead glaze to which has been added tin-oxide in a proportion of approximately 1:3.

The addition of tin-oxide to the glaze created an opaque, generally whiter surface that was often decorated with blue and polychrome designs.

The glaze is fragile and easily separates from the body. Because the tin content in the glaze was a more expensive ingredient than the lead, some potters in England and Holland sometimes used a lead or a greatly thinned tin-glaze on the backs of plates, dishes, and chargers.

Lead glazes do not appear to have ever been used on the back of Spanish majolica dishes.

Decoration
A wide variety of decorations are found on tin glaze earthenwares, with the most common including painting and powdering. In some cases, vessels were also left undecorated.

After a preliminary firing of the unglazed body the pot was glazed and then painted in preparation for the second and final firing.

Tin-glazed wares were most often decorated with cobalt oxide enamel, which fired blue.

Polychrome decorations are also known, particularly on early 17th century vessels and again after c1690, and were made with other metallic oxides including iron.

The colors on early polychrome pieces tend to be less vibrant than those on later vessels. Decorative motifs included geometric, floral, landscape, figures, and Chinese designs.

Decorative motifs are also chronologically sensitive.

In the 1640s, English potters started making plain white vessels without decoration, so that the ware could be mass-produced.

In 1660, after the restoration of the monarchy , colorfully painted decorations became popular again, particularly 'blue-dash chargers', which were large dishes decorated with blue dashes on the rim and some type of design in the center such as floral and fruit patterns, Adam and Eve motifs, or royal portraits.

After the 1630s, Chinese designs became popular.

In a systematic study of decorations found on dated tin-glazed vessels in museums, Ellen Shlasko (1989) was able to document and define date ranges for certain types of decorations found on English tin glaze ceramics. Her findings have been published (Miller 2002) and are summarised below.