The Bargain Hunter traces the history of creamware which once graced the tables of the middle classes
IF you wanted fine light table ware at the beginning of the 18th Century you only really had one choice: expensive Chinese porcelain. There was a home-produced earthenware imitation – Delft – but this was ponderous in comparison and very fragile.
However, by the middle of the 18th Century, potters in Staffordshire had come up with a lightweight, durable, cream-coloured earthenware that was to become the staple product on the tables of the middle classes for the rest of the century.
Creamware was made with white clays mixed with ground calcined (burnt) flint and given a lead glaze.
Iron impurities in the body and glaze gave the wares their characteristic cream colour.
The name associated with the finest creamware is that of Josiah Wedgwood who carried out many experiments to improve on the basic formula.
From 1767, Wedgwood called his version “Queen’s Ware”, after Queen Charlotte had ordered a tea service made of it.
The creamware plate in the picture was made by the rival Staffordshire firm of James Neale and Co and can be dated from the impressed mark in the back to around 1780.
The decoration of fancy or exotic birds has been printed in black over the glaze and then coloured in by hand. It’s vaguely reminiscent of a popular design of Wedgwood’s known as Liverpool Birds which was printed for Wedgwood by the Liverpool company of Sadler and Green.
The smooth cream surface of these wares was particularly well suited both to black transfer printing and hand painting.
Some particularly fine examples, painted with flowers, were done in Swansea at the beginning of the 19th Century by Thomas Pardoe.
Beautiful as the creamware body was, it was not ideal for underglaze blue decoration.
As the 18th Century progressed, potters turned their attention to developing a whiter earthenware body that could provide a cheaper alternative to the blue and white table wares made from porcelain.
Once again it is Wedgwood who is generally credited with having come up with the best alternative.
While other potters referred to their whiter earthenwares as China Glaze, Wedgwood called his Pearl White, from which was derived the common term “pearlware”.
Pearlware was basically the old creamware body whitened by the addition of china clay and with some china stone used in the glaze.
More importantly, a small amount of cobalt was also added to the glaze which gave it a bluish cast.
Wedgwood marketed his new whiter earthenwares from 1779, although he never liked them as much as his old Queensware.
Both types of body were made concurrently throughout much of the 19th Century, although they were increasingly superseded by bone china and other white earthenware bodies such as ironstone china.
The large mug in the picture is an example of pearlware and dates to around 1820. It’s printed in a rudimentary design in underglaze blue and the glaze shows the typical bluish tint, particularly where it has pooled around the footrim. Pearlware proved especially popular as a medium for underglaze blue transfer printing and much of the earlier 19th Century blue and white china is made of it.
I bought my Neale and Co plate in the flea market in Abergavenny for a fairly ridiculous £2. It has two small fleabites on the rim but, as an 18th Century example, would still be worth £30-£40. The pearlware mug cost £7 from an antiques fair in Cowbridge and is in absolutely pristine condition. Pearlware mugs of this type are quite sought after and a dealer I know told me he could easily get £100 for it.