|
Delftware
Among the artifacts found at the Eden House were delft vessels. Delft is used as a generic name for all tin-glazed earthenwares made
|
|
Delftware Tiles
|
in England or Holland. Some delft manufacturers tried to copy highly popular, but expensive, Chinese porcelain by coating the pottery with a lead glaze containing tin oxide. Chinese style patterns were then painted in blue on the white glazed background. While the resulting pottery looked like Chinese porcelain, the glaze was very fragile and chipped off easily from the rims of cups and other dishes used for hot beverages. Consequently, colonists rarely used delftware cups after the 1750s, but other vessels, such as plates and punchbowls, were used into the nineteenth century. As the eighteenth century progressed, people began to use delftwares less and less as the cost of porcelain dropped. English manufacturers also developed pottery that was fired at higher temperatures with glazes that were more resistant to flaking and cracking.
|
Colonoware
|
Early in the seventeenth century, much of the delft in the
|
|
Delftware Drug Pot
|
Virginia colony was from Holland. By the end of the century, however, England dominated the marketplace. As a result, most of the delftware found in the colonies dating to the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries originated in England. The most popular eighteenth-century delftware in the Virginia colony appeared to have been drug pots, dinner plates, and punch bowls.
|
