1. I am here using the term delftware with a lowercase d unless the tiles are known to have been made at Delft. 2. John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster and the Borough of Southwark . . . , 2 vols. (London: Printed for W. Innys, 1754–1755), 2: 327. 3. Rhoda Edwards, “London Potters circa 1570–1710,” Journal of Ceramic History 6 (1974): 22. In 1676 a Dutchman named John Ariens van Hamme arrived in London and obtained a patent for making “Tiles and Porcelaine and othere earthen wares.” He died three years later, and nothing is known about his products. Ibid., p. 115. 4. Other early corner designs are a spearhead-like device described in Holland as a “lily” but in English heraldry as a fleur-de-lis (fig. 3, right), and another called “fretwork.” However, I have not seen either of those used on maritime tiles. For spiders, see fig. 5, left and center; for oxheads, see figs.5, right, and 6. 5. Rita Susswein Gottesman, The Arts and Crafts in New York, 1726–1776: Advertisements and News Items from New York City Newspapers (New York: Printed for the New-York Historical Society, 1938), p. 90; Andrew Marschale, New-York Mercury, December 17, 1764. See my fig. 17. 6. Some eighteenth-century Dutch tile pictures required as many as four hundred, whereas the largest known English panel employed a mere ninety-six. Jonathan Horne, English Tin-glazed Tiles (London: J. Horne, 1989), p. 116. 7. By comparison with the painters of Renaissance majolica or the artists who would work on eighteenth-century delftwares, the tile painters were a pretty unassuming lot, their artistry at best described as naive. But therein lies its appeal. See fig. 34 for a reproduced, twelve-tile ship of about 1800. 8. John Potter, Archaeologia Graeca, or The Antiquities of Greece, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Stirling and Kenny, 1832), 2: 82. 9. These are not to be confused with another sea creature, known as a hippocampus, which was half horse and half fish. 10. Ivor Noël Hume, “The Mermaid Mystique,” in In Search of This and That (Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1996), p. 89. 11. Eighteenth-century London shopkeepers were happy to sell both together. On August 17, 1745, Hannah Ashburner at the Sign of the Rose at the corner of Fleet-Bridge, advertised that her stock included “English & Dutch Tyles.” Aubrey J. Toppin, “The China Trade and Some London Chinamen,” English Ceramic Circle Transactions 3 (1935), pl. xix, opp. p. 45. 12. Even this is not an infallible rule. In my collection is a pair of printed Liverpool tiles (ca. 1775–1780) depicting the difference between the plump British butcher and his emaciated French competitor; one has right-angled edges and the other chamfered. To further muddy the waters, beveled edges occur on some very early Dutch tiles. 13. Horne, English Tin-glazed Tiles, p. 119. 14. Jan Pluis, De Nederlandse Tegel: Decors en benamingen 1570–1930 (Leiden: Nederlands Tegelmuseum, 1997), p. 94, fig. 88b. See also Dingeman KorfSr., “Wat doen we met onze tegels,” Antiek (November 1966): 12–14. 15. In a letter of 1677 to Viscount Conway, Dr. William Johnson wrote about a supply of “Holland” tiles: “The way of sale of them is so much a foot, counting always four tiles to the foot, 10 inches making the Dutch foot.” Edwards, “London Potters circa 1570–1710,” p. 115, citing the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles II, 28 vols. (London: Longman, Green, 1860–1939), vol. 19 (March 1, 1677–February 28, 1678), p. 289. 16. The thickness of paving tiles from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries could be as much as .59 inches. 17. Dutch hats and caps of the seventeenth century came in a great variety of shapes, but this does not appear to be one of them. 18. Several merperson plates were made in London (Lambeth) delftware about 1720–1730 (see, e.g., Noël Hume, “The Mermaid Mystique,” p. 90), but the figure drawing is reminiscent of late Adam and Eve chargers. Another found in excavations at London Towne in Maryland is akin to the representations of Georgian kings. Fragments of three such plates were found in a tavern site, prompting one to speculate that the tavern or inn was named the Mermaid. The figure is more Tritonesque than mermaid, lacks both comb and mirror, and wears an air of surprised puzzlement. Al Luckenbach, “Ceramics from the Edward Rumney/ Stephen West Tavern, London Town, Maryland, Circa 1725,” in Ceramics in America, edited by Robert Hunter (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 2002), p. 145, fig. 25.