Slipwares
Slipwares are among the most decorative kind of everyday pottery used in the home from the 17th century onwards. 'Slip' is fine clay mixed with water and then sieved so that it can be applied to pottery in a liquid state. The term 'slipware' is restricted here to the use of slip as decoration, rather than as an overall coating on a pot. Many different techniques are used on wares made throughout Britain, of which the most common is slip-trailing, in which patterns can be 'drawn' on the pot by applying slip through a cow's horn or similar device with a nozzle. Other common techniques include feathering and marbling different colour slips on the same vessel, jewelling, by adding small dots of clay around the outline of a design, and sgraffito, whereby designs can be cut through the slip to reveal the body colour beneath.
In the London area, slip-decorated pottery was used from the 16th century onwards, inheriting a tradition for using decoratively slips of different colours that has its origins in the 12th century. The products of local potteries and imported wares from as far away as Devon and Somerset, the Midlands, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy all found a place in the London market, where they provided some of the most attractive and affordable, decorated household ceramics available between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Featured types
| Staffordshire type (1500 - 1800) |
| Imported slipwares (1500 - 1800) |
| Metropolitan (1630 - 1700) |
Related objects
There are 21 related objects.1
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A26714 vessel. |
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