Lois Roberts. Painted in Blue: Underglaze Blue Painted Earthenwares, 1775–1810. [Caernarfon, U.K.]: The Northern Ceramic Society, 2006. 170 pp., 400+ illus. £25 (softcover).
This nicely produced, compact, softbound volume is indispensable for anyone with the slightest interest in eighteenth-century British ceramic history. The subject matter is the blue-painted refined earthenware decorated in ebullient chinoiserie scenes, which was produced by virtually all of the British earthenware potters and shipped in prodigious quantities to America and ports elsewhere throughout the Western hemisphere. Roberts does include blue-painted floral patterns in her discussions, but the chinoiserie patterns dominate the genre. Archaeology tells us that some form of these earthenwares was used in every Anglo-American household in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Although ceramics scholars and, to a much lesser extent, historical archaeologists have shown interest in this most democratic of table- and teaware, Roberts’s contribution is the only published full-length book on the subject.
The vanguard of ceramic scholarship is often led by dedicated collectors rather than paid professionals. Part of this phenomenon certainly relates to the obsessive curiosity that drives most collectors, and Roberts’s publication is no exception: It is first and foremost a collector’s book. I use that term in the best possible sense, for I collect many of these so-called Chinese Pagoda or Chinese House patterns myself. I found my heart beating faster as I turned the pages to discover specimens that previously I could have only imagined. Indeed, throughout my initial read I found myself wishing Roberts’s book was an auction catalog.
As is true of many collectors, Roberts was introduced to her subject somewhat by accident. She was already interested in British printed wares when she happened upon an example of the so-called blue-painted Long Eliza pattern on a shell-edged plate. Whatever epiphany resulted from this chance meeting led her to scour the standard references for more information about her plate. Finding virtually nothing on the subject, she embarked on a twenty-year collecting and research crusade to learn everything she could, assembling a remarkable personal collection along the way. She incorporated her findings from examination of all the major British ceramic collections as well as archaeological specimens from a variety of factory sites.
Roberts’s primary research objectives parallel the cornerstone of any connoisseurship undertaking—determining the various manufactories and the dates of manufacture. Most examples of these earthenwares are unmarked, but the few that are serve as Rosetta stones for making attributions. The end result is an extensive catalog of diagnostic attributes from which to divine these links to specific factories and/or regions. Significantly, despite being able to identify the products of a couple dozen factories in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and Liverpool, there remain many more unattributable examples. Roberts resorts to classifying these within groups having such expedient monikers as “Bizarre House Group,” “Curved Fence Group,” and “Three Dot Group.”
Roberts’s book follows traditional reporting formats, beginning with the obligatory recitation of the technological progression of British ceramics that led to the development of the refined earthenware bodies within the British ceramic industry in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. These bodies, classified by mid-twentieth-century scholars as “creamware” and “pearlware,” have been the basis for ceramic scholarship ever since. In this aspect Roberts’s book falls short of current scholarly thinking. She continues to emphasize this well-worn concept of ware type although she implicitly embraces the essence of these blue-decorated earthenwares: the decoration.
As repeatedly argued by ceramic historian George Miller since 1980, it is through this decoration that the ceramic industry and its consumers related to their dishes. As a consequence, the story of these blue-painted earthenwares is best understood by the term that the potters used, china glaze. This term has been discussed by Miller, Terry Lockett, David Barker, and myself to indicate that it was consumer desire for chinoiserie decoration that drove the mass market and, consequently, the ceramic industry. Roberts acknowledges the significance of the term china glaze in a single paragraph and chooses not to embrace it fully, falling back on the pearlware versus creamware distinction in categorizing the blue-painted earthenwares.
Looking at decoration rather than ware gives us a much greater perspective on the longevity of the Western interest in things Chinese. A statement on the back cover of the book further suggests that Roberts has missed this point: “For the first time, the British middle classes could afford to buy tablewares painted in blue in the sought-after ‘Chinese’ style.” With this statement she dismisses the entire British delft industry, which successfully produced chinoiserie tablewares for more than 150 years prior to the introduction of the refined earthenware bodies. Almost anyone familiar with the term delft understands the power of blue and white and its connection to Chinese themes. From a historical perspective, I feel that blue-painted earthenwares are best understood as the “new” delft.
If these wares are simply part of the continuum of chinoiserie decoration, what makes china glaze special? Roberts clearly is attracted to the incredible variation in these hand-decorated designs. She rightfully acknowledges the relationship between decoration schemes used on British soft-paste porcelain of the 1760s and the later earthenware patterns. But for design historians, there is incredible fodder in many of these idiosyncratic interpretations of chinoiserie. Others have talked about the formulaic attempt to produce a standard Chinese House pattern that includes elements of trees and fences surrounding a central house. But Roberts vividly demonstrates that all bets are off, illustrating phantasmal examples having otherworldly connotations. The degree of variation and spontaneity in these designs is exceeded only by the variations in the so-called mocha wares.
The demise of underglaze-blue–painted chinoiseries came at the hands of technology and economics. The standardization of the printed Blue Willow pattern in the early nineteenth century unleashed a commercial product on the consumer world that can be found even on the shelves of today’s Wal-Mart. Beyond economics, I would ask the aesthetic question, what was it in the Anglo-American world that made it ready for this standardization of dishes? In the scheme of ceramic production history, this vastly understudied ceramic type—Roberts’s blue-painted dishes—are the last gasp of individual expression, one that we should recognize and for which we should continue to elevate our appreciation.
Other, more tangible issues are raised throughout Roberts’s inquiry into the social history of these earthenwares. Her observation that “Dinner plates dominate amongst the pieces found today” (p. 9) runs contrary to American archaeological assemblages, in which the predominant vessel forms are teawares and punch bowls. Decorated plates are very rare in American archaeological contexts, but the form seems to have survived well in the antiques market. Future analyses of the use of “china glaze” will require much more input from historical archaeologists both in Britain and America. Great potential exists if the archaeological community is up to the challenge. It certainly has the best reference book currently available.
In summary, Roberts’s book on the blue-painted earthenwares is essential for any ceramic historian, archaeologist, and collector concerned with eighteenth-century ceramic history. In addition to the aforementioned audience, I earnestly recommend this book to any material culture or contemporary ceramic class to feast upon the visual banquet provided by these everyday tablewares of the late eighteenth century. Roberts is to be applauded for her considerable efforts in producing this well-designed and well-photographed book. I would have suggested including an opening essay from a David Barker or a George Miller to better frame the significance of her research. As it is, she modestly concludes that the intention of the book was “to provide a foundation stone for future researchers to build upon.” In my estimation, she has also built the first and second floors.
Robert Hunter, Editor, Ceramics in America