1.
Victoria and Albert Museum
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The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the worlds largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and these include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. The museum is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. Like other national British museums, entrance to the museum has been free since 2001, the V&A covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The museum owns the worlds largest collection of sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea, the East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world, New 17th- and 18th-century European galleries were opened on 9 December 2015. These restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 1600–1815, at this stage the collections covered both applied art and science. Several of the exhibits from the Exhibition were purchased to form the nucleus of the collection, by February 1854 discussions were underway to transfer the museum to the current site and it was renamed South Kensington Museum. In 1855 the German architect Gottfried Semper, at the request of Cole, produced a design for the museum, but it was rejected by the Board of Trade as too expensive. The site was occupied by Brompton Park House, this was extended including the first refreshment rooms opened in 1857, the official opening by Queen Victoria was on 22 June 1857. In the following year, late night openings were introduced, made possible by the use of gas lighting, in these early years the practical use of the collection was very much emphasised as opposed to that of High Art at the National Gallery and scholarship at the British Museum. George Wallis, the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection, passionately promoted the idea of art education through the museum collections. From the 1860s to the 1880s the scientific collections had been moved from the museum site to various improvised galleries to the west of Exhibition Road. In 1893 the Science Museum had effectively come into existence when a director was appointed. The laying of the stone of the Aston Webb building on 17 May 1899 was the last official public appearance by Queen Victoria. It was during this ceremony that the change of name from the South Kensington Museum to the Victoria, the exhibition which the museum organised to celebrate the centennial of the 1899 renaming, A Grand Design, first toured in North America from 1997, returning to London in 1999
2.
Porcelain
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Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
3.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
4.
Soft-paste porcelain
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Soft-paste porcelain is a type of a ceramic material, sometimes referred to simply as soft paste. The porcelain was termed soft because of their lower firing temperates compared with hard-paste porcelain, the earliest formulations were mixtures of clay and ground-up glass. Soapstone and lime are also known to have included in some compositions. Medici porcelain was the first successful attempt in Europe to make imitations of Chinese porcelain, produced between 1575 and 1587 the body is a type of soft-paste porcelain, composed of white clay containing powdered feldspar, calcium phosphate and wollastonite, with quartz. Other early European soft-paste porcelain, also a porcelain, was produced at the Rouen manufactory in 1673. Again, these were developed in an effort to imitate high-valued Chinese hard-paste porcelain, as these early formulations suffered from high pyroplastic deformation, or slumping in the kiln at raised temperatures, they were difficult and uneconomic to use in mass. Formulations were later developed based on kaolin, quartz, feldspars, nepheline syenite, soft-paste porcelain with these ingredients was technically superior to the traditional soft-paste and these formulations remain in production. Soft-paste made with clay is not very plastic and shaping it on the potters wheel is difficult. Those pastes with more clay, such as porcelain, are extremely plastic. The feldspathic formulations are, however, more resilient and suffer less pyroplastic deformation, the lower firing temperature gives artists and manufacturers some benefits, including a wider palette of colours for decoration and reduced fuel consumption. The body of soft-paste is more granular than hard-paste porcelain, less glass being formed in the firing process, Chinese porcelain, which arrived in Europe before the 14th century, was much admired and expensive to purchase. Attempts were made to imitate it from the 15th century onwards, in Venice there were experiments supposedly using opaque glass alone. Experiments at the Rouen manufactory produced the earliest soft-paste in France, when a 1673 patent was granted to Louis Poterat, an application for the renewal of the patent in 1694 stated, the secret was very little used, the petitioners devoting themselves rather to faience-making. Rouen porcelain, which is painted, is rare and difficult to identify. The first important French porcelain was made at the Saint-Cloud factory, the typical blue-painted Saint-Cloud porcelain, says Honey, is one of the most distinct and attractive of porcelains, and not the least part of its charm lies in the quality of the material itself. The glaze often shows a fine satin-like pitting of the surface helps to distinguish it from the brilliant shiny glaze of Mennecy. The heavy build of the pieces is also characteristic and is saved from clumsiness by a sense of mass, revealed in the subtly graduated thickness of wall. Louis Henry de Bourbon, prince de Condé established a factory on the grounds of his château de Chantilly in 1730
5.
Meissen porcelain
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Meissen porcelain or Meissen china is the first European hard-paste porcelain. It was developed starting in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, after his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhauss work and brought porcelain to the market. Its signature logo, the swords, was introduced in 1720 to protect its production. It dominated the style of European porcelain until 1756, at the beginning of the eighteenth century Johann Friedrich Böttger pretended he had solved the dream of the alchemists, to produce gold from worthless materials. When King Augustus II of Poland heard of it, he kept him in protective custody, for years Johann Friedrich Böttger was unsuccessful in this effort. At the same time, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a mathematician and scientist, experimented with the manufacture of glass, Tschirnhaus supervised Böttger and by 1707 Böttger reluctantly started to help in the experiments by Tschirnhaus. When Tschirnhaus suddenly died, the recipe apparently was handed over to Böttger, Böttger refined the formula and with some Dutch co-workers, experienced in firing and painting tiles, the stage was set for the manufacturing of porcelain. In 1709, the King established the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Porcelain Manufactory, placed Böttgers laboratory at Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen, the first type of porcelain produced by Böttger was a refined and extremely hard red stoneware known in Germany as Böttgersteinzeug. It retained very crisp definition in its mold-cast applied details, on bodies that could be polished to a gloss before firing, models were derived from Baroque silver shapes and Chinese ceramic examples. Meissens production of a hard paste white porcelain that could be glazed and painted soon followed, Böttgers experimental wares rapidly gained quality but never achieved successful painted and fired decor. The first successful ornaments were gold decorations applied upon the fired body, multicolor enamelled painting was introduced by Johann Gregorius Höroldt in 1723, with an increasingly broad palette of colors that marked the beginning of the classic phase of Meissen porcelain. His enamel paints are still the basis for ceramic paints today, initially paintings often imitated oriental patterns. The signature underglaze Meissen Blue was introduced by Friedrich August Köttig, soon minutely detailed landscapes and port scenes, animals, flowers, galante courtly scenes and chinoiseries— fanciful Chinese-inspired decorations— were to be found on Meissen porcelain. The Kakiemon vases and tea wares of kilns in Arita, Japan were imitated as Indianische Blume, wares were also sold in solid glazed colors, to be enamelled in private workshops and independently retailed. The support of Augustus patronage attracted to Meissen some of the finest painters and modelers of Europe as staff artists, the Albrechtsburg was utilized to protect the secrets of the manufacture of the white gold. As a further precaution, very few knew the special secret of how to make porcelain. Thus, for a few years, Meissen retained its monopoly on the production of porcelain in Europe. By 1717, however, a production was set up at Vienna, as Samuel Stöltzel sold the secret recipe
6.
William Duesbury
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William Duesbury was an important enameller and British entrepreneur, founder of the Royal Crown Derby and owner of porcelain factories at Bow, Chelsea, Derby and Longton Hall. Duesbury was born on 7 September 1725. to William Duesbury, currier, around 1742 he was working as an enameller in London, where he remained until 1753. Subsequently, between 1754-5, he lived and worked in Longton Hall, where his father lived and where there was a china works. Planche did not remain long in the partnership and left Derby, Duesbury with Heaths financial backing opened a new factory on the Nottingham Road. This new venture proved to be a success, a London agent was engaged in April 1757. In 1770 Duesbury was able to purchase the failing Chelsea pottery factory and he continued the tradition at Chelsea of holding an annual auction. The first was on 17 April 1771 and the three following days, the next in 1773. In June 1774 he opened a warehouse in London at No.1 Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and held periodical auctions of his wares at that address and stopped the Chelsea auctions. The ware was announced sometimes as Derby and Chelsea, and sometimes as Chelsea alone, in March 1775 Duesbury and John Heath were given a Royal Warrant by George III appointing them China Manufacturers in Ordinary to His Majesty. This allowed them to include a crown on their porcelain mark, the Duesbury D was now capped with a crown to record that they were Derby China Manufacturers to His Majesty. Also in 1775 Duesbury acquired the manufactory of Bow and in 1777 those of Giless manufactory, Kentish Town, in 1779 Duesbury faced a severe financial crisis because his business partner Heath went bankrupt. Duesbury managed to survive the crisis and in August 1780 was able to purchase Heaths share of the business from his creditors and he was now the sole proprietor of the leading porcelain manufacturer in England. In 1783 his business was helped when George, Prince of Wales chose to use Duesburys wares furnish Carlton House, the next year,1784, Duesbury centralised all his manufacturing processes in Derby. Duesbury died of an attack on 30 October 1786 at the china factory in Nottingham Road Derby and was buried on 2 November at St Alkmunds Church. His business passed to his eldest son and partner William Duesbury II, in early 2013 Derby City Council and Derby Civic Society announced they would erect a Blue Plaque as a memorial to him at Landau Forte college, in Derby. The Grove encyclopedia of decorative arts, Cust, L. H. Ledger, A. P. Duesbury, William, rev. Page, William, ed. Pottery, Chelsea porcelain, a History of the County of Middlesex, General, Ashford, East Bedfont with Hatton, Feltham, Hampton with Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton. History of Royal Crown Porcelain Company, History of UK Potters and Potteries 1900-2010
7.
Royal Crown Derby
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The Royal Crown Derby Porcelain Company is the oldest or second oldest remaining English porcelain manufacturer, based in Derby, England. The company, particularly known for its high-quality bone china, has produced tableware and it was known as Derby Porcelain until 1773, when it became Crown Derby, the Royal being added in 1890. The factory closed down in the past under Royal Doulton ownership, in 1745 André Planché, a Huguenot immigrant from Saxony, settled in Derby, where between 1747 and 1755 he made soft-paste porcelain vases and figurines. At the beginning of 1756 he formed a partnership with William Duesbury, a porcelain painter formerly at Chelsea porcelain factory and Longton Hall. Planché disappeared from the scene almost at once, and the business was developed by Duesbury and Heath, a talented entrepreneur, Duesbury developed a new body which contained glass frit, soapstone and calcined bone. This enabled the factory to begin producing high-quality tableware and he quickly established Derby as a leading manufacturer of dinner services and figurines by employing the best talents available for modelling and painting. Figure painting was done by Richard Askew, particularly skilled at painting cupids, zachariah Boreman and John Brewer painted landscapes, still lifes, and pastorals. Intricate floral patterns were designed and painted by William Billingsley, in 1770, Duesbury further increased the already high reputation of Derby by his acquisition of the famous Chelsea porcelain factory in London. He operated it on its site until 1784, when he demolished the buildings and transferred the assets, including the stock, patterns and moulds. Again, in 1776, he acquired the remainder of the formerly prestigious Bow porcelain factory and he seems not to have enjoyed good relations with the highly skilled workforce, and many eminent artists left. Others however produced good work under his management, including Moses Webster, the best-known artist of this time was William Pegg, a Quaker, famed for his striking and idiosyncratic flower painting. He started in 1797 but his religious beliefs led him to the conclusion that painting was sinful and he returned in 1813, but left again in 1820. Despite much good work, the Kean period was disruptive and the company suffered financially, in 1815, the factory was leased to the firms salesman and clerk, Robert Bloor, and the Duesburys played no further part in it. These designs proved extremely and lastingly popular, and Derby continued to thrive, in 1845, however, Bloor died, and after three years under Thomas Clarke, the Cockpit Works were sold and the factory closed in 1848. No mechanical processes were used, and no two pieces produced were exactly the same, among the items preserved was the original potters wheel of the Duesburys, still owned by the present Royal Derby Company. In 1877, a new factory was built by new owners of the Crown Derby name in Osmaston Road, Derby. Crown Derby’s patterns became popular during the late Victorian era, as their romantic. In 1890, Queen Victoria appointed Crown Derby to be Manufacturers of porcelain to Her Majesty, in 1935 Royal Crown Derby acquired the King Street factory, thus reuniting the two strands of the business
8.
Triangle
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A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted △ A B C, in Euclidean geometry any three points, when non-collinear, determine a unique triangle and a unique plane. This article is about triangles in Euclidean geometry except where otherwise noted, triangles can be classified according to the lengths of their sides, An equilateral triangle has all sides the same length. An equilateral triangle is also a polygon with all angles measuring 60°. An isosceles triangle has two sides of equal length, some mathematicians define an isosceles triangle to have exactly two equal sides, whereas others define an isosceles triangle as one with at least two equal sides. The latter definition would make all equilateral triangles isosceles triangles, the 45–45–90 right triangle, which appears in the tetrakis square tiling, is isosceles. A scalene triangle has all its sides of different lengths, equivalently, it has all angles of different measure. Hatch marks, also called tick marks, are used in diagrams of triangles, a side can be marked with a pattern of ticks, short line segments in the form of tally marks, two sides have equal lengths if they are both marked with the same pattern. In a triangle, the pattern is no more than 3 ticks. Similarly, patterns of 1,2, or 3 concentric arcs inside the angles are used to indicate equal angles, triangles can also be classified according to their internal angles, measured here in degrees. A right triangle has one of its interior angles measuring 90°, the side opposite to the right angle is the hypotenuse, the longest side of the triangle. The other two sides are called the legs or catheti of the triangle, special right triangles are right triangles with additional properties that make calculations involving them easier. One of the two most famous is the 3–4–5 right triangle, where 32 +42 =52, in this situation,3,4, and 5 are a Pythagorean triple. The other one is a triangle that has 2 angles that each measure 45 degrees. Triangles that do not have an angle measuring 90° are called oblique triangles, a triangle with all interior angles measuring less than 90° is an acute triangle or acute-angled triangle. If c is the length of the longest side, then a2 + b2 > c2, a triangle with one interior angle measuring more than 90° is an obtuse triangle or obtuse-angled triangle. If c is the length of the longest side, then a2 + b2 < c2, a triangle with an interior angle of 180° is degenerate
9.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
10.
Crayfish
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Some species are found in brooks and streams where there is running fresh water, while others thrive in swamps, ditches, and rice paddies. Most crayfish cannot tolerate polluted water, although species such as Procambarus clarkii are hardier. Crayfish feed on living and dead animals and plants, the name crayfish comes from the Old French word escrevisse. The word has been modified to crayfish by association with fish, the largely American variant crawfish is similarly derived. Some kinds of crayfish are known locally as lobsters, crawdads, mudbugs, the study of crayfish is called astacology. Exceptions include western rock lobster found on the west coast of Australia, the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish found only in Tasmania, in Singapore, the term crayfish typically refers to Thenus orientalis, a seawater crustacean from the slipper lobster family. True crayfish are not native to Singapore, but are found as pets, or as an invasive species in the many water catchment areas. The body of a crustacean, such as a crab, lobster. Each segment may possess one pair of appendages, although in various groups these may be reduced or missing, on average, crayfish grow to 17.5 centimetres in length, but some grow larger. Walking legs have a claw at the end. There are three families of crayfish, two in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere family Parastacidae lives in South America, Madagascar and Australasia, and is distinguished by the lack of the first pair of pleopods. Of the other two families, members of the Astacidae live in western Eurasia and western North America and members of the family Cambaridae live in eastern Asia, Madagascar has an endemic genus, Astacoides, containing seven species. Europe is home to seven species of crayfish in the genera Astacus and Austropotamobius, cambaroides is native to Japan and eastern mainland Asia. The greatest diversity of species is found in southeastern North America, with over 330 species in nine genera. A further genus of crayfish is found in the Pacific Northwest. Many crayfish are found in lowland areas where the water is abundant in calcium. Crayfish were introduced purposely into a few Arizona reservoirs and other bodies of water decades ago and they have since dispersed beyond those original sites. Australia has over 100 species in a dozen genera, in Australia, many of the better-known crayfish are of the genus Cherax, and include the marron from Western Australia, red-claw crayfish, common yabby and western yabby
11.
Jug
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A jug is a type of container commonly used to hold liquid. It has an opening, often narrow, from which to pour or drink, most jugs throughout history have been made of ceramic, glass or plastic. Some Native American and other tribes created liquid holding vessels by making woven baskets lined with an asphaltum sealer. In American English usage, a jug is a container with a narrow mouth and handle for liquids. In all other English speaking countries a jug is any container with a handle and a mouth and spout for liquid, in American English pitcher is the usual word for wide-mouthed vessels, but all other English speaking countries these are called jugs. Jugs can be also named water jugs and these water jugs can be used for survival anywhere. In these jugs, water can be stored for a later period and/or emergencies, the word jug is first recorded in the late 15th century as jugge or jubbe. It is of unknown origin, but perhaps comes from jug a familiar name used to describe a low woman and this in turn comes from the alteration of common personal names such as Joan or Judith. In certain countries, especially New Zealand and Australia, a jug refers to a jug containing 2 pints of beer. In Britain in those parts of the county there is a choice between a pint tankard and a straight glass of beer, a tankard may be called a tankard or a jug. A jug of beer may also refer to a jug containing larger amounts, but if a large jug is sold it will be advertised as such in the pub and this helps to reduce confusion. In American folk music, an empty jug is sometimes used as a musical instrument and it is often part of a jug band, to which ensemble it lends its name
12.
Coalport
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Coalport is a village in Shropshire, England. It is located on the River Severn in the Ironbridge Gorge and it lies predominantly on the north bank of the river, on the other side is Jackfield. He also directed the construction of the Shropshire Canal, linking the East Shropshire coalfield with the River Severn — the terminus being Coalport Wharf between the Brewery Inn and Coalport Bridge, Coalport at this time was much larger than it is today. It forms part of the parish of The Gorge and is the southeastern corner of the borough of Telford. It was restored and strengthened in 2004, the bridge links Coalport with Broseley, a small town approximately a mile away. The bridge effectively extends Coalport across the river to a historically known as Preens Eddy. On this southern side of the bridge is the Woodbridge Inn, the Telford and Wrekin borough boundary runs through Preens Eddy - the Woodbridge Inn for instance lies in the Shropshire Council area. Coalport was home to an important pottery founded in 1795 by John Rose and it produced Coalport porcelain which became popular worldwide. The building it was produced in is now a Youth Hostel. Production later moved across the canal to the buildings which are now the Coalport China Museum, production moved to Staffordshire in 1926, and, although the Coalport name was retained as a brand, the company subsequently became part of the world-famous Wedgwood group. The easternmost part of Coalport was, at one time, served by two railway stations, Coalport East was a terminus of a branch from Wellington on the northern river bank. Coalport West was a station on the Severn Valley Railway on the other. The station building is a private residence, two converted ex-British Railways coaches have been placed between the platforms to provide holiday accommodation. The Tar Tunnel, a source of natural bitumen, is near the Coalport Canal. The Memorial Bridge is a footbridge spanning the River Severn, linking Coalport with Jackfield and it was built with funds raised by public subscription in 1922, and is in memorial to those who died in the First World War. The Coalport Canal runs through the village and greatly aided the settlements development, the Hay Inclined Plane was completed in 1793 and is one of the countrys major industrial monuments and the best preserved and most spectacular of its kind. It enabled canal barges and narrowboats to be transferred from the bottom of the Severn gorge to the top, up a 1 in 4 gradient on wheeled cradles, operated by a team of just four men. It was the equivalent of 27 canal locks and could transport six barges per hour in this fashion, the canal was eventually superseded by rail transport and fell into neglect, silting up and becoming overgrown and was infilled in the 1920s
13.
Francis Barlow (artist)
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Francis Barlow was an English painter, etcher, and illustrator. He ranks among the most prolific book-illustrators and printmakers of the 17th century, working across several genres, natural history, hunting and recreation, politics, and decoration and design. Barlow is known as the father of British sporting painting, he was Britains first wildlife painter, beginning a tradition that reached a high-point a century later, Barlow was born c.1626 in Lincolnshire. The exact day of Barlows death is unknown but he was buried on 11 August 1704, Barlows first major work was the illustration of poet Edward Benlowes Theophila. In Barlows favour, Bullen said in 1885 that the volume valued rather for the engravings than for the text, according to Manchesters Chethams Library, no two copies of Benlowes Theophila are the same, and no copy survives in good condition. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds two different copies, one of which includes a drawing by Barlow. Barlow designed the one hundred and ten woodcuts for John Ogilbys translation of Aesops Fables, published in 1665, hollar,1671, published by John Overton. A case in point is A Decoy, Barlows allegory on the threat posed to England by Roman Catholicism and these were more recently housed at Clandon Park, an 18th-century mansion near Guildford, Surrey, becoming one of the largest collections of Barlows surviving work. Barlows work miraculously survived a fire at Clandon Park on 29 April 2015. Examples of Barlows work can be seen at Ham House, examples are held, too, by, Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Barlow frequently signed the initials of his name, F. B. instead of inserting it at full length, Barlow has come to be regarded as a surprisingly neglected artist. English art List of British artists External sources Francis Barlow, c, 1626-1702, From, A New General Biographical Dictionary, Projected and partly arranged by the late Rev. Principal of Kings College, London Hodnett, Edward, Francis Barlow, first master of English book illustration. Berkeley, University of California Press,1978, https, //www. lambiek. net/artists/b/barlow_francis. htm Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Bullen, Arthur Henry
14.
Aesop's Fables
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Aesops Fables or the Aesopica is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. The fables originally belonged to the tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop’s death. By that time a variety of stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the later Middle Ages, the process is continuous and new stories are still being added to the Aesop corpus, even when they are demonstrably more recent work and sometimes from known authors. Manuscripts in Latin and Greek were important avenues of transmission, although poetical treatments in European vernaculars eventually formed another, on the arrival of printing, collections of Aesop’s fables were among the earliest books in a variety of languages. Through the means of later collections, and translations or adaptations of them, initially the fables were addressed to adults and covered religious, social and political themes. They were also put to use as guides and from the Renaissance onwards were particularly used for the education of children. Their ethical dimension was reinforced in the world through depiction in sculpture, painting and other illustrative means, as well as adaptation to drama. In addition, there have been reinterpretations of the meaning of fables and changes in emphasis over time, apollonius of Tyana, a 1st-century CE philosopher, is recorded as having said about Aesop. Like those who dine well off the plainest dishes, he use of humble incidents to teach great truths. The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned in passing that Aesop the fable writer was a slave who lived in Ancient Greece during the 5th century BCE, instead, any fable tended to be ascribed to the name of Aesop if there was no known alternative literary source. In Classical times there were various theorists who tried to differentiate these fables from other kinds of narration and they had to be short and unaffected, in addition, they are fictitious, useful to life and true to nature. In them could be found talking animals and plants, although humans interacting only with humans figure in a few, typically they might begin with a contextual introduction, followed by the story, often with the moral underlined at the end. Setting the context was often necessary as a guide to the interpretation, as in the case of the political meaning of The Frogs Who Desired a King and The Frogs. Sometimes the titles given later to the fables have become proverbial, as in the case of killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs or the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. In fact some fables, such as The Young Man and the Swallow, one theorist, indeed, went so far as to define fables as extended proverbs. In this they have a function, the explaining of origins such as, in another context, why the ant is a mean. Other fables, also verging on this function, are outright jokes, as in the case of The Old Woman, Some are demonstrably of West Asian origin, others have analogues further to the East
15.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
16.
Vincennes porcelain
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The Vincennes porcelain manufactory was established in 1740 in the disused royal Château de Vincennes, in Vincennes, east of Paris, which was from the start the main market for its wares. The entrepreneur in charge at first, Claude-Humbert Gérin, established workshops and employed craftsmen from the Chantilly manufactory, whose patron, notable defectors from Chantilly were the debt-ridden brothers Gilles and Robert Dubois, one a sculptor, the other a painter. The Chinese manufacturing secrets for porcelain manufacturing were revealed by the Jesuit Father Francois Xavier dEntrecolles in 1712, the silversmith Jean-Claude Duplessis was brought in during 1745, he designed vases for Vincennes embodying the robust yet balanced French Rococo. Gifted sculptors were contracted to provide models for table sculptures, enamel painting was applied over the fired glazes, to be refired at lower temperature, and at Vincennes the refinement of its techniques began to approach that of miniatures. Three small white figures, together with a vase, were mounted on a gilt-bronze pedestal. The vase contains a bouquet of flowers also made in porcelain, M. de Fulvy told me there were 480 flowers in the bouquet. The vase with its pedestal and the flowers stood about three feet high. The bronze mounting alone cost 100 louis, and the porcelain just as much, it is a work of its kind— as much for the whiteness as for the execution of the small figures. The covered vases of the model pot-pourri Pompadour were designed by Duplessis, after 1752, through a Royal Edict, Vincennes was handed a monopoly of polychrome decors, which reduced the scope of other manufactories to some degree. In 1757 Étienne Maurice Falconet was appointed director of the sculpture atelier, the procedure of introducing datemarks, and painters and gilders marks, which has made a detailed understanding of individual styles of Sèvres possible, was initiated at Vincennes, in 1753. Orientalism in early modern France Tamara Préaud, ed. Porcelaines de Vincennes, les origines de Sèvres, exhibition catalogue, Grand Palais, October 1977 — January 1978 Sassoon, pair of Duplessis vases,1753 Clark Art Institute
17.
Kakiemon
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The style shares much in common with the Chinese Famille Verte style. The superb quality of its decoration was highly prized in the West, the potter Sakaida Kakiemon is popularly credited with being one of the first in Japan to discover the secret of enamel decoration on porcelain, known as akae. Kakiemon is sometimes used as a term describing wares made in the Arita factories using the characteristic Kakiemon overglaze enamels. However, authentic Kakiemon porcelains have been produced by direct descendants, shards from the Kakiemon kiln site at Nangawara show that blue and white and celadon wares were also produced. Kakiemon decoration is usually of high quality, delicate and with asymmetric well-balanced designs and these were sparsely applied to emphasize the fine white porcelain background body known in Japan as nigoshide which was used for the finest pieces. In this period, Sakaida Kakiemon produced normal akae wares, Sakaida Kakiemon XII and XIII attempted to reproduce nigoshide and succeeded in 1953. It has continued to be produced since then, the Kakiemon porcelain was imported into Europe via the Dutch East India Company, and beginning in the 1580s, through a variety of other avenues. Augustus the Strong of Saxony and Mary II of England both owned examples, the earliest inventory to include Japanese porcelain in Europe was made at Burghley House in 1688, these included a standing elephant with its trunk raised and a model of two wrestlers. Wares included bowls, dishes and plates, often hexagonal, octagonal or fluted with scalloped edges, the famed white nigoshide body was only used with open forms, and not for closed shapes such as vases, bottles and teapots, or for figures and animals. The hexagonal Kamiemon vases and covers known as Hampton Court vases were named after a pair at Hampton Court Palace, London, around 1730, this shape was copied at Meissen, Germany, which entered into a sister city contract with Arita, in 1979. The style was adopted and copied in Chelsea and Worcester in the 1750s. The Kakiemon porcelain proved an influence on the new porcelain factories of 18th-century Europe. Meissen copies could be close to the originals, alternatively, the factory painters sometimes just borrowed designs. Kakiemon style was adapted in Germany and Austria by the Du Paquier and Vienna factories and in France at Chantilly, Mennecy. Kakiemon was also an influence on Dutch Delft pottery and Chinese export porcelain, Sakaida Kakiemon, The 1st Kakiemon Sakaida Kakiemon XII Sakaida Kakiemon XIV, who was a Living National Treasure in Japan. Imari porcelain Japanese pottery Korean pottery Chinese porcelain Pottery Intangible Cultural Properties of Japan Takeshi, Japanese ceramics from the Tanakamaru collection. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
18.
Chantilly porcelain
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Chantilly porcelain is French soft-paste porcelain produced between 1730 and 1800 by the manufactory of Chantilly in Oise, France. At first the body of the ware was covered with an opaque tin-glaze like that used for faience, later a slightly yellowish clear lead glaze was employed. The prince de Condé died in 1740, after which the factory was forced to support itself and its manager, the Englishman Christopher Potter, bought it in the early stages of the French Revolution, but it closed shop in 1800. In fact, Potter set up two different manufactures, the first one early 1792 and the second in 1795
19.
Tableware
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Tableware is the dishes or dishware used for setting a table, serving food and dining. It includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes and other items for practical as well as decorative purposes. The quality, nature, variety and number of objects according to culture, religion, number of diners, cuisine. For example, Middle Eastern, Indian or Polynesian food culture and cuisine sometimes limits tableware to serving dishes, special occasions are usually reflected in higher quality tableware. Sets of dishes are referred to as a service, dinner service or service set. Table settings or place settings are the dishes, cutlery and glassware used for formal and informal dining, in Ireland such items are normally referred to as delph, the word being an English language phonetic spelling of the word delft, the town from which so much delftware came. Silver service or butler service are methods for a butler or waiter to serve a meal, Setting the table refers to arranging the tableware, including individual place settings for each diner at the table as well as decorating the table itself in a manner suitable for the occasion. Tableware and table decoration is more elaborate for special occasions. Unusual dining locations demand tableware be adapted, dishes are usually made of ceramic materials such as earthenware, stoneware, faience, bone china or porcelain. However, they can be made of materials such as wood, pewter, silver, gold, glass. Before it was possible to purchase mass-produced tableware, it was fashioned from available materials, industrialisation and developments in ceramic manufacture made inexpensive washable tableware available. It is sold either by the piece or as a set for a number of diners, normally four, six, eight. Large quantities are purchased for use in restaurants, individual pieces, such as those needed as replacement pieces for broken dishes, can be procured from open stock inventory at shops, or from antique dealers if the pattern is no longer in production. Possession of tableware has to a large extent been determined by individual wealth, the greater the means, the higher was the quality of tableware that was owned and the more numerous its pieces. In the London of the 13th century, the more affluent citizens owned fine furniture and silver, while those of straiter means possessed only the simplest pottery and kitchen utensils. By the later 16th century, even the poorer citizens dined off pewter rather than wood and had plate, jars, the nobility often used their arms on heraldic china. Table decoration may be ephemeral and consist of items made from confectionery or wax - substances commonly employed in Roman banqueting tables of the 17th century, in modern times, ephemeral table decorations continue to be made from sugar or carved from ice. In wealthy countries such as 17th century France, table decorations for the aristocracy were made of silver
20.
Philip Miller
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Philip Miller FRS was an English botanist of Scottish descent. Born in Deptford or Greenwich Miller was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1722 until he was pressured to retire shortly before his death. Miller corresponded with botanists, and obtained plants from all over the world. His knowledge of living plants, for which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, was unsurpassed in breadth in his lifetime and he trained William Aiton, who later became head gardener at Kew, and William Forsyth, after whom Forsythia was named. Through a consortium of sixty subscribers, 1733–66, the contents of Bartrams boxes introduced such American trees as Abies balsamea, Miller was reluctant to use the new binomial nomenclature of Carl Linnaeus, preferring the classifications of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and John Ray at first. Miller sent the first long-strand cotton seeds, which he had developed and they were first planted on Sea Island, off the coast of Georgia, and hence derived the name of the finest cotton, Sea Island Cotton. The presumed portrait, engraved by C. J, millers two sons worked under him, one, Charles, became the first head of the Cambridge Botanic Garden. Miller, Philip The Gardeners Kalendar - digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library Miller, Philip Figures of the most beautiful, useful, - digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library
21.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
22.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
23.
Anchor
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An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα. Anchors can either be temporary or permanent, permanent anchors are used in the creation of a mooring, and are rarely moved, a specialist service is normally needed to move or maintain them. Vessels carry one or more anchors, which may be of different designs. A sea anchor is a drogue, not in contact with the seabed, used to control a drifting vessel, anchors achieve holding power either by hooking into the seabed, or via sheer mass, or a combination of the two. Permanent moorings use large masses resting on the seabed, semi-permanent mooring anchors and large ships anchors derive a significant portion of their holding power from their mass, while also hooking or embedding in the bottom. Modern anchors for smaller vessels have metal flukes which hook on to rocks on the bottom or bury themselves in soft seabed, the vessel is attached to the anchor by the rode, which is made of chain, cable, rope, or a combination of these. A10,1 scope gives the greatest holding power, Anchoring with sufficient scope and/or heavy chain rode brings the direction of strain close to parallel with the seabed. If necessary, motoring slowly around the location of the anchor also helps dislodge it, anchors are sometimes fitted with a tripping line attached to the crown, by which they can be unhooked from rocks or coral. The term aweigh describes an anchor when it is hanging on the rope and is not resting on the bottom and this is linked to the term to weigh anchor, meaning to lift the anchor from the sea bed, allowing the ship or boat to move. An anchor is described as aweigh when it has broken out of the bottom and is being hauled up to be stowed. Aweigh should not be confused with under way, which describes a vessel which is not moored to a dock or anchored, the earliest anchors were probably rocks, and many rock anchors have been found dating from at least the Bronze Age. Pre-European Maori waka used one or more hollowed stones, tied with flax ropes, many modern moorings still rely on a large rock as the primary element of their design. However, using pure mass to resist the forces of a storm only works well as a permanent mooring, the ancient Greeks used baskets of stones, large sacks filled with sand, and wooden logs filled with lead. According to Apollonius Rhodius and Stephen of Byzantium, anchors were formed of stone, such anchors held the vessel merely by their weight and by their friction along the bottom. Iron was afterwards introduced for the construction of anchors, and an improvement was made by forming them with teeth, or flukes, the Admiralty Pattern, A. P. or simply Admiralty, and also known as Fisherman, is the anchor shape most familiar to non-sailors. It consists of a shank with a ring or shackle for attaching the rode. At the other end of the shank there are two arms, carrying the flukes, while the stock is mounted to the other end, when the anchor lands on the bottom, it will generally fall over with the arms parallel to the seabed
24.
Rococo
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Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty themes. By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XVs reign and it includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille and coquilles, the term may also be a combination of the Italian word barocco and the French rocaille and may describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century. The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say that the style was frivolous or merely modish, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning old-fashioned. While there is some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, an exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIVs succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves. These elements are obvious in the designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this change became well established, first in the royal palace. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XVs reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France, the style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications, william Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty that the lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace. The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality, Blondel decried the ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order, in Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke, and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil
25.
Toy
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A toy is an item that is used in play, especially one designed for such use. Playing with toys is supposed to be a means of training young children for life in society. Different materials like wood, clay, paper, and plastic are used to make toys, many items are designed to serve as toys, but goods produced for other purposes can also be used. For instance, a child may fold an ordinary piece of paper into an airplane shape. Newer forms of toys include interactive digital entertainment, some toys are produced primarily as collectors items and are intended for display only. The origin of toys is prehistoric, dolls representing infants, animals, the origin of the word toy is unknown, but it is believed that it was first used in the 14th century. Toys are mainly made for children, the oldest known doll toy that has been found is thought to be 4,000 years old. Playing with toys is considered to be important when it comes to growing up, younger children use toys to discover their identity, help their bodies grow strong, learn cause and effect, explore relationships, and practice skills they will need as adults. Adults on occasion use toys to form and strengthen social bonds, teach, help in therapy, most children have been said to play with whatever they can find, such as sticks and rocks. Toys and games have been unearthed from the sites of ancient civilizations and they have been written about in some of the oldest literature. Toys excavated from the Indus valley civilization include small carts, whistles shaped like birds, the earliest toys are made from materials found in nature, such as rocks, sticks, and clay. Thousands of years ago, Egyptian children played with dolls that had wigs and movable limbs which were made from stone, pottery, in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, children played with dolls made of wax or terracotta, sticks, bows and arrows, and yo-yos. When Greek children, especially girls, came of age it was customary for them to sacrifice the toys of their childhood to the gods, on the eve of their wedding, young girls around fourteen would offer their dolls in a temple as a rite of passage into adulthood. The oldest known mechanical puzzle comes from Greece and appeared in the 3rd century BC. The game consisted of a divided into 14 parts. In Iran puzzle-locks were made as early as the 17th century, Toys became more widespread with the changing attitudes towards children engendered by the Enlightenment. Children began to be seen as people in and of themselves, as opposed to extensions of their household, the variety and number of toys that were manufactured during the 18th century steadily rose, John Spilsbury invented the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767 to help children learn geography. He created puzzles on eight themes - the World, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, England and Wales, the rocking horse was developed at the same time in England, especially with the wealthy as it was thought to develop childrens balance for riding real horses
26.
Perfume
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Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds, fixatives and solvents - used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces a pleasant scent. Ancient texts and archaeological excavations show the use of perfumes in some of the earliest human civilizations, the word perfume derives from the Latin perfumare, meaning to smoke through. Perfumery, as the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, the worlds first-recorded chemist is considered a woman named Tapputi, a perfume maker mentioned in a cuneiform tablet from the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia. She distilled flowers, oil, and calamus with other aromatics, then filtered, in India, perfume and perfumery existed in the Indus civilization. One of the earliest distillations of Ittar was mentioned in the Hindu Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita, in 2004 –2005, archaeologists uncovered what are believed to be the worlds oldest surviving perfumes in Pyrgos, Cyprus. The perfumes date back more than 4,000 years and they were discovered in an ancient perfumery, a 4, 000-square-meter factory housing at least 60 stills, mixing bowls, funnels, and perfume bottles. In ancient times people used herbs and spices, such as almond, coriander, myrtle, conifer resin, the book also described 107 methods and recipes for perfume-making and perfume-making equipment, such as the alembic. The Persian chemist Ibn Sina introduced the process of extracting oils from flowers by means of distillation and he first experimented with the rose. Until his discovery, liquid perfumes consisted of mixtures of oil and crushed herbs or petals, rose water was more delicate, and immediately became popular. Both the raw ingredients and the technology significantly influenced western perfumery and scientific developments. The art of perfumery was known in western Europe from 1221, taking account the monks recipes of Santa Maria delle Vigne or Santa Maria Novella of Florence. In the east, the Hungarians produced in 1370 a perfume made of scented oils blended in an alcohol solution – best known as Hungary Water – at the behest of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. The art of perfumery prospered in Renaissance Italy, and in the 16th century the personal perfumer to Catherine de Medici, Rene the Florentine and his laboratory was connected with her apartments by a secret passageway, so that no formulae could be stolen en route. Thanks to Rene, France quickly became one of the European centers of perfume, cultivation of flowers for their perfume essence, which had begun in the 14th century, grew into a major industry in the south of France. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, perfumes were used primarily by the wealthy to mask body odors resulting from infrequent bathing, partly due to this patronage, the perfume industry developed. In 1693, Italian barber Giovanni Paolo Feminis created a perfume water called Aqua Admirabilis, today best known as eau de cologne, by the 18th century the Grasse region of France, Sicily, and Calabria were growing aromatic plants to provide the growing perfume industry with raw materials. Even today, Italy and France remain the center of European perfume design, Perfume types reflect the concentration of aromatic compounds in a solvent, which in fine fragrance is typically ethanol or a mix of water and ethanol. Various sources differ considerably in the definitions of perfume types, the intensity and longevity of a perfume is based on the concentration, intensity and longevity of the aromatic compounds, or perfume oils, used
27.
Decorative box
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A decorative box is a form of packaging that is generally more than just functional, but also intended to be decorative and artistic. Many such boxes are used for packaging, both commercially and privately. Historical objects are usually called caskets if larger than a few inches in more than one dimension, traditionally gift boxes used for promotional and seasonal gifts are made from sturdy paperboard or corrugated fiberboard. These boxes normally consist of a base and detachable lid and are made by using a die cutting process to cut the board, the box is then covered with decorative paper. Gift boxes can be dressed with other gift packaging material, such as decorative ribbons, the most common type of decorative box is the feminine work box. It is usually fitted with a divided into many small compartments for needles, reels of silk and cotton. The date of its origin is unclear, but 17th-century examples exist, covered with silk and adorned with beads, no lady would have been without her work box in the 18th century. In the second half of century, elaborate pains were taken to make these boxes dainty. Work boxes are portable, but at times they form the top of a stationary table. A jewelry box, also known as a casket, is a receptacle for trinkets, snuff boxes are made in two sizes, ones for the pocket and communal boxes made for table use. Pocket boxes are made to hold a small amount of snuff for immediate consumption. High-quality boxes have tightly-sealed lids to ensure that air does not penetrate the box, pocket boxes are intended keep a day or twos supply. Table boxes are still to be found in the mess of certain old regiments - often in the rams head style -. Boxes made for the poorer snuff taker were more ordinary, popular and cheap boxes were made in papier-mâché and even potato-pulp, alloys that resembled gold or silver were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries such as the ersatz gold Pinchbeck and the silver look-alike, Sheffield Plate. The lids were often adorned with a portrait, a vignette, portrait miniature, hardstone inlays. Some of the most expensive just used subtly different colours of gold, perhaps the most widely used semi-precious metal was silver and snuffs of all shapes and sizes were made in that metal during snuffs great popularity. Monarchs retained the habit of bestowing snuff-boxes upon ambassadors and other intermediaries as a form of honor, as Talleyrand explained, the diplomatic corps found a ceremonious pinch to be a useful aid to reflection in a business interview. At the coronation of George IV of England, Messrs, rundell and Bridge, the court jewellers, were paid £8,205 for snuff-boxes for gifts to foreign representatives
28.
Thimble
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A thimble is a small hard pitted cup worn for protection on the finger that pushes the needle in sewing. Usually, thimbles with a closed top are used by dressmakers, finger guards differ from tailors thimbles in that they often have a top but are open on one side. Some finger guards are little more than a shield attached to a ring to maintain the guard in place. The Old English word þȳmel, the ancestor of thimble, is derived from Old English þūma, oddly, neither the Romans nor the Greeks before them appear to have used metal thimbles. It may be leather or cloth finger guards proved sufficiently robust for their purposes. There are so-called Roman thimbles in museum collections, but the provenance of these metal thimbles is, in fact, not certain, no well-documented archeological data link metal thimbles to any Roman site. According to the United Kingdom Detector Finds Database, thimbles dating to the 10th century have found in England. Medieval thimbles were either cast brass or made from hammered sheet, early centers of thimble production were those places known for brass-working, starting with Nuremberg in the 15th century, and moving to Holland by the 17th. In 1693, a Dutch thimble manufacturer named John Lofting established a manufactory in Islington, in London, England. He later moved his mill to Buckinghamshire to take advantage of water-powered production, at the same time, cheaper sources of silver from the Americas made silver thimbles a popular item for the first time. Thimbles are usually made from metal, leather, rubber, and wood, early thimbles were sometimes made from whale bone, horn, or ivory. Natural sources were also utilized such as Connemara marble, bog oak, rarer works from thimble makers utilized diamonds, sapphires, or rubies. Advanced thimblemakers enhanced thimbles with semi-precious stones to adorn the apex or along the outer rim, cabochon adornments are sometimes made of cinnabar, agate, moonstone, or amber. Thimble artists would also utilize enameling, or the Guilloché techniques advanced by Peter Carl Fabergé, originally, thimbles were used simply solely for pushing a needle through fabric or leather as it was being sewn. Since then, however, they have gained many other uses, from the 16th century onwards silver thimbles were regarded as an ideal gift for ladies. Early Meissen porcelain and elaborate, decorated gold thimbles were also given as keepsakes and were usually quite unsuitable for sewing and this tradition has continued to the present day. In the early period, thimbles were used to measure spirits, and gunpowder. Prostitutes used them in the practice of thimble-knocking where they would tap on a window to announce their presence, thimble-knocking also refers to the practice of Victorian schoolmistresses who would tap on the heads of unruly pupils with dames thimbles
29.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
30.
Birmingham Museum of Art
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Among other highlights, the Museum’s collection of Asian art is considered the finest and most comprehensive in the Southeast, and its Vietnamese ceramics one of the finest in the U. S. The Birmingham Museum of Art is owned by the City of Birmingham, erected in 1959, the present building was designed by architects Warren, Knight and Davis, and a major renovation and expansion by Edward Larrabee Barnes of New York was completed in 1993. The facility encompasses 180,000 square feet, including a sculpture garden. The Museum’s growing collection of nearly 2,000 objects is derived from the major groups of sub-Saharan Africa. Since its doors opened to the public in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art has collected and exhibited the art of Alabama, among the earliest works to enter the collection were paintings by significant Alabama artists including the miniaturist Hannah Elliott and the landscapist Carrie Hill. Throughout its history, the Museum has continued its commitment to the arts of Alabama, in 1995, it organized Made in Alabama, a groundbreaking survey of artistic production in the state during the 19th century. In addition to collecting the works of academically trained native artists, the Museum has built a collection of folk art, including painting, sculpture, quilts. Thanks to the generosity of Robert and Helen Cargo, the Museum possesses one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Southern quilts in the country, similarly, several major private collectors are helping the Museum build the most significant repository of Alabama pottery in the State. The Museum’s Asian art collection started with a gift of Chinese textiles in 1951 and today, also, on long-term loan from The Smithsonian Institution is the Vetlesen Jade Collection of 16th- to 19th-century pieces, one of the most important jade collections in the U. S. The Museum has the only gallery for Korean art in the Southeast, notable holdings include the only public collection of late 19th-century European cast iron items in the U. S. The museum features an installation of Native American arts. The galleries are organized into four cultural groupings according to region, Eastern Woodlands, Plains, Northwest Coast, highlights of the collection include a large grouping of fine Navajo blankets and rugs, an extensive collection of Northwest coast art, and important historic and contemporary Pueblo ceramics. There also are excellent examples of Plains beadwork and stunning shaman headdresses, the collection features stunning objects from Meso-America, Central America, and the Northern Andes. Highlights from Meso-America include Zapotec ceramics, objects related to the ballgame, Maya figure sculpture, ceramics and jewelry, Aztec stone sculpture, and West Mexican figural tomb sculpture. Cultures of ancient Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama are well represented, works include jewelry, metates, censors, volcanic stone figure sculpture. Northern Andean objects include Sican ceremonial gold vessels and tumi, ceramics from the Moche, Chimu, Chancay, and Vicus cultures, Incan keros and mummy masks, center for the study of Wedgwood. In 1927 they were able to display their collection in the galleries of the new Birmingham Public Library, over the next two decades the club continued to add to the collection and raise support in the press and in City Hall for the concept of a new building. In September 1950 a governing board was created to oversee the creation of a museum as an institution of service, educational and recreational
31.
Walters Art Museum
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The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th Century, located across the back alley, a block south of the Walters mansion on West Monument Street/Mount Vernon Place, on the northwest corner of North Charles Street at West Centre Street. The following year, The Walters reopened its original building after a dramatic three-year physical renovation and replacement of internal utilities. The Archimedes Palimpsest was on loan to the Walters Art Museum from a collector for conservation. This was one of the largest and most comprehensive such releases made by any museum, the Walters collection of ancient art includes examples from Egypt, Nubia, Greece, Rome, Etruria and the Near East. In 1911, Henry Walters purchased almost 100 gold artifacts from the Chiriqui region of western Panama in Central America, the museum owns the oldest surviving Chinese wood-and-lacquer image of the Buddha. It is exhibited in a gallery dedicated solely to this work, the Museum holds one of the largest and finest collections of Thai bronze, scrolls, and banner paintings in the world. Islamic art in all media is represented at the Walters, the Walters Museum owns an array of Islamic manuscripts. Walters Art Museum, MS W.613 contains five Mughal miniatures from a very important Khamsa of Nizami made for the Emperor Akbar, Henry Walters assembled a collection of art produced during the Middle Ages in all the major artistic media of the period. This forms the basis of the Walters medieval collection, for which the Museum is best known internationally. Considered one of the best collections of art in the United States, the Museums holdings include examples of metalwork, sculpture, stained glass, textiles, icons. Sculpted heads from the royal Abbey of St. Denis are rare surviving examples of sculptures that are directly connected with the origins of Gothic art in 12th Century France. An ivory casket covered with scenes of jousting knights is one of about a dozen such objects to survive in the world, many of these works are on display in the Museums galleries. Works in the collection are the subject of active research by the curatorial and conservation departments of the museum. The collection of European Renaissance and Baroque art features holdings of paintings, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, metal work, arms, the museum has one of ten surviving examples of the Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship from the 1750s and 1760s. William and Henry Walters collected works by late 19th Century French academic masters, Henry Walters was particularly interested in the courtly arts of 18th Century France. The museum’s collection of Sèvres porcelain includes a number of pieces that were made for members of the Royal Bourbon Court at Versailles Palace outside of Paris. Portrait miniatures and the examples of works, especially snuffboxes and watches, are displayed in the Treasury, along with some exceptional 19th-
32.
Bow porcelain factory
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The Bow porcelain factory was an emulative rival of the Chelsea porcelain factory in the manufacture of early soft-paste porcelain in Great Britain. The factory was located near Bow, in what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the local council owns a significant collection, which is in the care of the boroughs Heritage and Arts Service. Designs imitated imported Chinese and Japanese porcelains and the wares being produced at Chelsea, meissen figures were copied, both directly and indirectly through Chelsea. Quality was notoriously uneven, the warm, creamy body of Bow porcelains is glassy, the earliest Bow porcelains are of soft-paste incorporating bone ash, forming a phosphatic body that was a precursor of bone china. By 1750 Frye was serving as manager of the factory, under new owners, John Crowther, in 1753 they were advertising in Birmingham for painters and a modeller. The works, designated New Canton, were sited on the Essex side of the River Lea, about 1758, the manufactorys high point,300 persons were employed,90 of whom were painters, all under one roof. An account of the returns for a period of five years shows that the cash receipts, which were £6,573 in 1750–51, increased steadily from year to year. The total amount of sales in 1754 realized £18,115. The firm had a shop in Cornhill and a warehouse at St Katharines near the Tower. The part-owner Weatherby died in 1762 and his partner Crowther was listed as bankrupt the following year, three sales dispersed his effects in March and May 1764. The large white figure of the Farnese Flora, a point in the Bow production, was taken, it has been suggested. Some were enamelled by William Duesbury, some Bow figures were imitated from Chelsea models. Bow porcelain adopted the newly invented technique of printing from Battersea enamels in the 1750s. Derby porcelain Adam, Elizabeth and David Redstone, Bow Porcelain 1991, bradshaw, Peter Bow Porcelain Figures circa 1748–17741992. Rococo in English ceramics in, Rococo, Art and Design in Hogarths England, tait, Hugh, Bow porcelain in, R. J. British Porcelain 1745–18501965 Daniels, Pat, including the Participation of the Royal Society, Andrew Duche and the American Contribution 2007. 364 pp.48 colour and 51 b/w illustrations
33.
Derby Porcelain
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The production of Derby porcelain dates from the first half of the 18th century, although the authorship and the exact start of the production remains today as a matter of conjecture. It was common at the time that dealers purchased white glazed porcelain from various manufacturers, curiously, there are no other references to this supposed «Derby Porcelain Manufactory, » which suggests that the name was specifically invented for the occasion. Although it can be only as boasting, the advertisement calls the factory a «second Dresden. The potter Andrew Planche is often cited as a forerunner of the Derby china factory, reports about a «foreigner in very poor circumstances» who lived in Lodge Lane and produced small porcelain figures around 1745, may refer to Planchè. However, as pointed out by a researcher, in 1745 Planchè was only 17 years old, the very importance of Planchè to the constitution of the future Royal Crown Derby was minimized by some, and contested by others, who doubt his existence. However, there is evidence that Planchè was really a historical figure, a serious contender for the title of maker of the porcelain pieces of the «second Dresden» is the Cockpit Hill Potworks. We deduce that this «Derby Pot Works» was already in operation around 1708, on behalf of a slipware tyg. It is known that the «Pot Works» produced china, due to the announcement of an auction held in 1780, no mention is made of enamelled figures, but it is quite likely that they were also built, at a time when demand for these items was high. Or, perhaps, this branch of the works has been assimilated by the Duesburys factory from the second half of 1750s on. Because of an arrest warrant drawn up in 1758 against a certain John Lovegrove, we know that the owners of the «Cockpit Hill Potworks» were William Butts, Thomas Rivett and John Heath. However, competition with the Nottingham Road factory seems to have been fatal. » In 1785, from the book Bow, Chelsea, and Derby Porcelain by William Bemrose,1,2,3 - Earliest Derby Marks, generally in blue. 4 - Crossed swords, crown, and D, and 6 dots, carefully painted in blue, later in puce,5,6 - Ditto, less carefully painted in red. 7,8,9,10 - Later Duesbury Marks,11 - Duesbury & Kean, seldom used, circa 1795 to 1809. 12,13,14,15 - Bloor Marks, commence 1811 to 1849,16,17,18,19 - Quasi Oriental Marks used on several occasions in matching, and to use up seconds stock by Bloor. No.17 is an imitation of the Sèvres mark,20 - Dresden Mark, often used on figures. 21 - Derby Mark, supposed to have used by Holdship when at Derby. 22 - Stephenson & Hancock, King Street Factory,1862, same mark used afterwards by Sampson Hancock,23 - Mark used by the Derby Crown Porcelain Co. Osmaston Road, from its establishment in 1877 to Dec.1889,24 - This Mark adopted by the above Co. when Her Majesty granted the use of the prefix Royal on 3 January 1890
34.
Porcelain manufacturing companies in Europe
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Porcelain manufacturing companies are firms which manufacture porcelain. The table below lists European manufacturers of porcelain established before the 18th century and this table may be sorted according to the year of foundation, description and country. The table below lists European manufacturers of porcelain established in the 18th century and this table may be sorted according to the year of foundation, description and country
35.
Chinese ceramics
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Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era, Porcelain is so identified with China that it is still called china in everyday English usage. Most later Chinese ceramics, even of the finest quality, were made on an industrial scale, many of the most important kiln workshops were owned by or reserved for the Emperor, and large quantities of ceramics were exported as diplomatic gifts or for trade from an early date. The earliest Chinese pottery was earthenware, which continued in production for utilitarian uses throughout Chinese history, but was increasingly less used for fine wares. Porcelain, on a Western definition, is a term comprising all ceramic ware that is white and translucent. The Chinese tradition recognizes two categories of ceramics, high-fired and low-fired, so doing without stoneware, which in Chinese tradition is mostly grouped with porcelain. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used for stonewares with porcelain-like characteristics, the Erya defined porcelain as fine, compact pottery. Chinese pottery can also classified as being either northern or southern, the kiln types were also different. Southern materials have high silica, low alumina and high potassium oxide, the northern materials are often very suitable for stoneware, while in the south there are also areas highly suitable for porcelain. Chinese porcelain is made by a combination of the following materials. Porcelain stone - decomposed micaceous or feldspar rocks, historically known as petunse. Feldspar Quartz In the context of Chinese ceramics, the term lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made, claims have been made for the late Eastern Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period, the Six Dynasties period, and the Tang dynasty. Chinese kiln technology has always been a key factor in the development of Chinese pottery, the Chinese developed effective kilns capable of firing at around 1, 000°C before 2000 BC. These were updraft kilns, often built below ground, two main types of kiln were developed by about 200 AD and remained in use until modern times. Both could reliably produce the temperatures of up to 1300°C or more needed for porcelain, in the late Ming, the egg-shaped kiln or zhenyao was developed at Jingdezhen, but mainly used there. This was something of a compromise between the types, and offered locations in the firing chamber with a range of firing conditions. According to Science, pottery dating from 20,000 years ago were found at the Xianrendong Cave site
36.
Chinese export porcelain
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Chinese export porcelain includes a wide range of Chinese porcelain that was made exclusively for export to Europe and later to North America between the 16th and the 20th century. Whether wares made for non-Western markets are covered by the term depends on context, Chinese ceramics made mainly for export go back to the Tang dynasty if not earlier, though initially they may not be regarded as porcelain. The other types include Swatow ware, made for South-East Asian and Japanese markets, Chinese celadons were exported to most of Eurasia, but not Europe, between roughly the Tang and the early Ming dynasties. Chinese export porcelain was generally decorative, but without the significance of wares produced for the Chinese home market. Except for the rare Huashi soft paste wares, traditionally Chinese porcelain was made using kaolin, while rim chips and hairline cracks are common, pieces tend not to stain. Chinese wares were thinner than those of the Japanese and did not have stilt marks. In the 16th century, Portuguese traders began importing late Ming dynasty blue and white porcelains to Europe, buyers included the Kings of England and France. After this, a number of European nations established companies trading with the countries of the Far East, the trade continued until the mid-17th century when the Ming dynasty fell in 1644, and civil war disrupted porcelain production. European traders then turned to Japanese porcelain instead, as valuable and highly prized possessions, pieces of Chinese export porcelain appeared in many 17th century Dutch paintings. The illustration shows a painting by Jan Jansz, treck that includes two Kraak-style bowls, probably late Ming, the one in the foreground being of a type the Dutch called klapmuts. The blue pigment used by the artist has faded badly since the picture was painted, under the Kangxi Emperors reign the Chinese porcelain industry at Jingdezhen was reorganised and the export trade soon flourished again. Chinese export porcelain from the late 17th century included Blue and white, wares included garnitures of vases, dishes, teawares, ewers, and other useful wares along with figurines, animals and birds. Blanc de Chine porcelains and Yixing stonewares arriving in Europe and gave inspiration to many European potters, for the potters of Jingdezhen the manufacture of porcelain wares for the European export market presented new difficulties. Writing from the city in 1712, the French Jesuit missionary Père François Xavier dEntrecolles records that, although European crests on Chinese porcelain can be found on pieces made as early as the 16th century, around 1700 the demand for armorial porcelain increased dramatically. Thousands of services were ordered with drawings of individuals coat of arms being sent out to China to be copied and shipped back to Europe and, from the late 18th century, to North America. Some were lavishly painted in enamels and gilding, while others, particularly later examples, might incorporate only a small crest or monogram in blue. A wide variety of shapes, some of Chinese or Islamic origin, oriental figurines included Chinese gods and goddesses such as Guanyin and Budai, figurines with nodding heads, seated monks and laughing boys as well as figurines of Dutch men and women. From the mid-18th century, even copies of Meissen figurines such as Tyrolean dancers were made for export to Europe, birds and animals, including cows, cranes, dogs, eagles, elephants, pheasants, monkeys and puppies, were popular
37.
Chinese influences on Islamic pottery
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Chinese influences on Islamic pottery cover a period starting from at least the 8th century CE to the 19th century. This influence of Chinese ceramics has to be viewed in the context of the considerable importance of Chinese culture on Islamic arts in general. Despite the distances involved, there is evidence of contact between eastern and southwestern Asia from antiquity. Some very early Western influence on Chinese pottery seems to appear from the 3rd-4th century BCE. An Eastern Zhou red earthenware bowl, decorated with slip and inlaid with glass paste, foreign influence especially is thought to have encouraged the Eastern Zhou interest in glass decorations. Contacts between China and Central Asia were formally opened from the 2nd to 1st century BCE through the Silk Road, in the following centuries, a great cultural influx benefited China, embodied by the appearance in China of foreign art, new ideas and religions, and new lifestyles. Such mixed influences are visible in the earthenwares of Northern China in the 6th century. The best of these ceramics use bluish green, yellow or olive glazes, direct contacts between the Muslim and Chinese worlds were marked by the Battle of Talas in 751 in Central Asia. Muslim communities are known to have present in China as early as the 8th century CE, especially in commercial harbours such as Canton. From the 9th century onwards, Islamic merchants started to import Chinese ceramics and these exotic objects were cherished in the Islamic world and also became an inspiration for local potters. Archaeological finds of Chinese pottery in the Middle East go back to the 8th century, remains of Tang period ceramics have been found in Samarra and Ctesiphon in present-day Iraq, as well as in Nishapur in present-day Iran. These were less successful than those of Korean pottery, but eventually were able to provide attractive local competition to Chinese imports. Chinese production could adapt to the preferences of foreign markets, larger celadon dishes than the Chinese market wanted were favoured for serving princely banquets in the Middle East, celadon wares were believed there to have the ability to detect poison, by sweating or breaking. After about 1450 celadon wares fell out of fashion in China, and this style of ornament was then confined to blue and white, and is not found in the red and white painted wares then preferred by the Chinese themselves. The start of the Ming dynasty was followed by a decree of 1368. Often Islamic production imitated not the latest Chinese styles, but those of the late Yuan, in turn, Chinese potters began in the early 16th century to produce some items in overtly Islamic styles, including jumbled inscriptions in Arabic. These appear to have made for the growing Chinese Muslim market. Yue ware originated in the Yue kilns of Northern Zhejiang, in the site of Jiyuan near Shaoxing, called Yuezhou in ancient times
38.
Proto-celadon
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Proto-celadon was a type of Chinese ceramic which developed during the Shang period and Western Han periods. It is often described as proto-porcelain, and was usually glazed in light yellowish green, the body of proto-celadon was high-fired, the Chinese classification including porcelain, with an iron content below 3%. Firing temperature was around 1200 degrees Celsius, in Western terms the wares are stoneware. Surface treatment consisted of a lime glaze, the type of objects manufactured in proto-celadon were similar to the objects manufactured in bronze. During the Shang and Zhou periods, proto-celadon was mainly produced in the south of the Yangtze river. Following this period, production greatly improved in quantity and quality, from the Eastern Han period, true celadon ware started to appear, with production focused in Zhejiang Province. Although still following the shapes and patterns of proto-celadon wares, these advances now represented the characteristics of porcelain, with refined clays and these advances were followed by those of Yue ware, and the blooming of celadon production from the period of the Song dynasty. A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
39.
Celadon
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Celadon originated in China, though the term is purely European, and notable kilns such as the Longquan kiln in Zhejiang province are renowned for their celadon glazes. Celadon production later spread to regions in Asia, such as Japan, Korea. Eventually European potteries produced some pieces, but it was never an element there. Finer pieces are in porcelain, but both the color and the glaze can be produced in stoneware and earthenware, most of the earlier Longquan celadon is on the border of stoneware and porcelain, meeting the Chinese but not the European definitions of porcelain. The similarity of the color to jade, traditionally the most highly valued material in China, was a part of its attraction. Celadon continued to be produced in China at a lower level, in Korea the celadons produced under the Goryeo Dynasty are regarded as the classic wares of Korean porcelain. The celadon colour is produced by firing a glaze containing a little iron oxide at a high temperature in a reducing kiln. The materials must be refined, as other chemicals can alter the color completely, too little iron oxide causes a blue colour, and too much gives olive and finally black, the right amount is between 0. 75% and 2. 5%. The presence of chemicals may have effects, titanium dioxide gives a yellowish tinge. Pieces made with a celadon glaze are themselves often referred to as celadons, the term celadon for the potterys pale jade-green glaze was coined by European connoisseurs of the wares. Another theory is that the term is a corruption of the name of Saladin, the Ayyubid Sultan, yet a third theory is that the word derives from the Sanskrit sila and dhara, which mean green and stone respectively. The unique grey or green glaze is a result of iron oxides transformation from ferric to ferrous iron during the firing process. Individual pieces in a single firing can have different colours. Most of the time, green was the colour, reminding the Chinese of jade. The most famous and desired shades range from a pale green to deep intense green, often meaning to mimic the green shades of jade. The main color effect is produced by iron oxide in the recipe or clay body. Celadons are almost exclusively fired in a reducing atmosphere kiln as the changes in the iron oxide which accompany depriving it of free oxygen are what produce the desired colors. As with most glazes, crazing can occur in the glaze and, greenwares are found in earthenware from the Shang dynasty onwards
40.
Yue ware
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Yue ware or Yüeh ware is a type of Chinese ceramics, a felspathic siliceous stoneware, which is characteristically decorated with celadon glazing. Yue ware is sometimes called green porcelain in modern literature. It has been one of the most successful and influential of all south Chinese ceramics types, Yue ware was fired in dragon kilns. The Yue glazing was an ash glaze, made with a recipe using wood ash and clay, firing temperature is thought to have been about 1, 000°C or slightly higher. The color of the ranges from grey to olive to brown. Yue ware is considered as the ancestor of Song celadon ceramics, Yue ware originated in the Yue kilns of Northern Zhejiang, in the site of Jiyuan near Shaoxing, called in ancient times Yuezhou. Its name goes back to the Yue of the Spring and Autumn period, Yue ware was first manufactured in the 2nd century CE, when it consisted of very precise imitations of bronze vessels, many of which have been found in tombs of the Nanjing region. After this initial phase, Yue ware evolved progressively into true ceramic form, production in Jiyuan stopped in the 6th century, but expanded to various areas of Zhejiang, especially around the shores of Shanglinhu in Yuyao County（余姚县）. Yue ware was highly valued and was used as tribute for the court of China in the 9th century. Significantly, it was used in Chinas most revered Famen Temple （法门寺）in Shaanxi Province（陕西省）. Yue ware was exported to the Middle East early on, in an early example of Chinese influences on Islamic pottery, shards of Yue ware have been excavated in Samarra, Iraq. From the 8th to the 11th centuries, it was exported to East Asia, South Asia. A particularly refined form of Yue ware is the Mi-se Yue ware found in the Famen Temple and this ware was undecorated but characterized by a smooth and thin glaze of a light color, either yellowish green or bluish green. Korean celadons were thought to be influenced by Yue ware by the 11th century, however, the Koreans developed their own bluish-green celadon glazes by the Koryo dynasty, that was different from those of Yue wares. Medley, Margaret, Tang Pottery and Porcelain,1981, Faber & Faber, ISBN0571109578 A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
41.
Ding ware
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Ding ware, Ting ware or Dingyao were Chinese ceramics, mostly porcelain, produced in the prefecture of Dingzhou in Hebei in northern China. The main kilns were at Jiancicun or Jianci in Quyang County and they were produced between the Tang and Yuan dynasties of imperial China, though their finest period was in the 11th century, under the Northern Song. The kilns were in almost constant operation from the eighth until the mid-fourteenth century. The most characteristic wares are thin porcelains with a white or greyish body, chemical analysis has shown that they were often made entirely of a kaolinitic clay without any petuntse or porcelain stone. They are mostly decorated, with uncoloured designs that are incised or in shallow relief. A key event in this process was the flight of the remaining Northern Song court to the south, a new Southern Song court was based in Hangzhou. This may have accompanied by the movement of potters to Jingdezhen. The white glaze was noted for a cream or ivory tint. Earlier, pre-Song, pieces had a blueish tint as they were fired with wood, a change to firing with coal, probably in the 10th century, produced the tint described as ivory. Other secondary wares had monochrome glazes in different colours, a rare black, various shades of red and brown, gold. These are better known through literature than through surviving examples, only the red and black are represented by entire pieces. These may lack any other decoration, another rare group is white with painted underglaze decoration in a brown derived from iron oxides. Pieces produced in Ding ware were mostly open vessels of a small size, with shapes and decoration often borrowed from metalwork. Any decoration on the outside of pieces continued to be hand-carved for some time, while the decoration was hand-carved, it was mostly scrolling plant-forms including lotus and peony, with some simple animals such as ducks and fish. These were generally rather open and well spaced, executed with remarkable fluency, moulds allowed more complexity, including scenes with children, landscapes and other animals. The Ding kilns developed stepped saggars, allowing several bowls, slightly reducing in size, to be fired in the same saggar, terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases. Ding ware was later grouped as one of the Five Famous Kilns and it heavily influenced the early white wares of Jingdezhen, where the white porcelain preceding Qingbai ware is known as Southern Ding, and Qingbai also shows considerable influence in its decoration. Ding production continued under the Jin dynasty, non-Chinese interlopers from Manchuria, Jin court taste was very different from the Song, favouring elegant plant-scroll designs, now mostly moulded, which were more intricate than those already produced under the Northern Song
42.
Qingbai ware
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Qingbai ware is a type of Chinese porcelain produced under the Song Dynasty and Yuan dynasty, defined by the ceramic glaze used. Qingbai ware is white with a tint, and is also referred to as Yingqing. It was made in Jiangxi province in south-eastern China, in locations including Jingdezhen. However, it was not at the time a prestigious ware, the quality is very variable, reflecting these different markets, the best pieces can be very thin-walled. Qingbai ware was made with a porcelain body, fired with a glaze that produced a slight blue-green tint. The kilns used pine wood as fuel, producing an atmosphere that produced the tint. Qingbai ware was used by commoners, and never seems to have made for imperial use. In the 14th century the same manufacturers turned to the new blue and white porcelain, using the same body, many types of items were made, as well as the usual plates and bowls, there were teapots and small round lidded boxes, usually described as for cosmetics. Items made for burial included tall funerary urns with complicated, and rather crowded, there are also tomb figures, though less care is expended on these than on the famous sancai figures of the Tang dynasty. Small Buddha statues, often highly detailed hair, clothes and accessories. A variety of forming techniques were used, tending for basic shapes to move over the period from wheel-thrown vessels decorated by carving with a knife or impressed decoration, to moulded bodies. Shapes and decoration had much in common with Ding ware from northern China, Qingbai initially appeared in the Northern Song period, from about 960 to 1127, and became a sought-after item in the Chinese market. It became even more popular during the Southern Song period, which lasted approximately from 1127 to 1279 and it was also exported in quantity to China’s neighboring nations. Kilns used to make Qingbai ware have been unearthed in many of Chinas provinces, suggesting great popularity, excavations at the kiln site for Jizhou ware revealed large numbers of discarded fragments of Qingbai, below the layers with brown and white painted wares. Jizhou was clearly one of the sites where this was produced. It was apparently a gift to Louis the Great of Hungary, the vase was then mounted with a silver handle and base, transforming it into a ewer and transferred as a gift to his Angevin kinsman Charles III of Naples in 1381. It is now, having lost its medieval mounts, in the National Museum of Ireland, Qingbai was later also produced in Japan, where it is known as seihakuji. A record auction price was paid for a statue of a seated Guanyin, Qingbai ware is not considered to be part of the wu wei ce, Five Great Kilns, or five classic wares of the Song Dynasty
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Jingdezhen porcelain
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Jingdezhen porcelain is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in southern China. Jingdezhen may have produced pottery as early as the sixth century CE, though it is named after the name of Emperor Zhenzong, in whose reign it became a major kiln site. By the 14th century it had become the largest centre of production of Chinese porcelain, from the Ming period onwards, official kilns in Jingdezhen were controlled by the emperor, making imperial porcelain in large quantity for the court and the emperor to give as gifts. It also has a river leading to river systems flowing north and south, the imperial kilns were in the centre of the city at Zhushan, with many other kilns four kilometres away at Hutian. The imperial kilns were situated at Pearl Hill in Jingdezhen, some give a date of 1369 for the commencement of production. But there continued to be many other kilns, producing wares for many distinct markets, the imperial court, except during periods of crisis, generated a huge demand for porcelain. Apart from the vast main palaces and other residences, for much of the period the many princes had subsidiary regional courts, there were imperial temples to be supplied, each of which was given monochrome wares in different colours, as well as several monasteries and shrines. The porcelain to which different ranks of the household were entitled were set out in minute detail in regulations. The final version of these, from 1899, specified that the Empress Dowager Cixi was allowed 821 pieces of yellow porcelain, a concubine of the first rank had 121 pieces of yellow with a white interior, but those of the second rank had yellow decorated with green dragons. The Ming dynasty is dated as beginning in 1368, but there was a long revolt against the Yuan dynasty. By 1402 there were twelve imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, then one of three areas with imperial kilns, production was controlled by a ministry in the capital, by then in Beijing, far to the north. Production was on a scale, employing hundreds if not thousands of workers. In 1433 a single order from the palace was for 443,500 pieces of porcelain, all with dragon, court artists were by now supplying drawn or woodblock printed designs from the capital. Some may also have sold, especially for export. Sometimes antique pieces in the Imperial collection were sent to Jingdezhen to be copied, a recently excavated Ming princely burial has yielded the first example to survive until modern times of a type of gaiwan set known from 15th-century paintings. There is a blue and white Jingdezhen stem cup, that has a silver stand, presumably many such sets existed, but recycling the precious metal elements was too tempting at some point, leaving only the porcelain cups. Other imperial porcelains may have carried gilding, which has now worn away, under the Yongle Emperor, reign marks were introduced for the first time, applied to porcelain and other types of luxury products made for the imperial court. A wide variety of wares were produced for the court, with blue and white accompanied by red and this was sometimes combined with the cobalt blue in blue and red pieces
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Blue and white pottery
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Blue and white pottery covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is applied by hand, originally by brush painting. Blue and white decoration first became used in Chinese porcelain in the 14th century. A style of decoration based on plant forms spreading across the object was perfected. Blue and white pottery in all of these continues to be produced. Cobalt blue was first used in decorating Islamic pottery, especially in Persia, the first Chinese blue and white wares were as early as the ninth century in Henan province, China, although only shards have been discovered. Tang period blue-and-white is even rarer than Song blue-and-white and was unknown before 1985, the Tang pieces are not porcelain however, but rather earthenwares with greenish white slip, using cobalt blue pigments. The only three pieces of complete Tang blue and white in the world were recovered from Indonesian Belitung shipwreck in 1998 and it appears that the technique was thereafter forgotten for some centuries. There are still arguing that early pieces are mis-dated, and in fact go back to the Southern Song. In the early 14th century, mass-production of fine, translucent, blue and white porcelain started at Jingdezhen and this development was due to the combination of Chinese techniques and Islamic trade. The new ware was made possible by the export of cobalt from Persia, cobalt blue was considered as a precious commodity, with a value about twice that of gold. Motifs also draw inspiration from Islamic decorations, a large portion of these blue-and-white wares was then shipped to Southwest-Asian markets through the Muslim traders based in Guangzhou. From the 16th century, local sources of cobalt blue started to be developed, production of blue and white wares has continued at Jingdezhen to this day. Blue and white porcelain made at Jingdezhen probably reached the height of its technical excellence during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty. The true development of blue and white ware in China started with the first half of the 14th century, the main production center was in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province. With the advent of the Ming dynasty in 1368, blue and white ware was shunned for a time by the Court, especially under the Hongwu and Yongle Emperors, as being too foreign in inspiration. Blue and white porcelain however came back to prominence with the Xuande Emperor, during the 17th century, numerous blue and white pieces were made as Chinese export porcelain for the European markets. European symbols and scenes coexisted with Chinese scenes for these objects, in the 1640s, rebellions in China and wars between the Ming dynasty and the Manchus damaged many kilns, and in 1656–1684 the new Qing Dynasty government stopped trade by closing its ports
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Dehua porcelain
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Dehua porcelain is a type of white Chinese porcelain, made at Dehua in the Fujian province. A traditional European term for it is Blanc de Chine and it has been produced from the Ming dynasty to the present day. Large quantities arrived in Europe as Chinese export porcelain in the early 18th century and it was copied at Meissen and it was also exported to Japan in large quantities. The area along the Fujian coast was one of the main ceramic exporting centers. Over one-hundred and eighty kiln sites have been identified extending in historical range from the Song period to present, the two principal kiln sites were those of Qudougong and Wanpinglun. The Wanpinglun site is the older of the two and manufactured pressed wares and others, the kilns of Dehua also produced other ceramic wares, including some with under glaze blue decoration. From the Ming period porcelain objects were manufactured that achieved a fusion of glaze and body traditionally referred to as ivory white and milk white. The special characteristic of Dehua porcelain is the small amount of iron oxide in it. The unfired porcelain body is not very plastic but vessel forms have been made from it, there was a large output of figures, especially religious figures, e. g. Guanyin, Maitreya, Luohan and Ta-mo figures. Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, was revered in Fujian. Donnelly says, “There is no doubt that figures constitute the great glory of blanc de Chine. ”Some have been produced with little modification from the late 16th or early 17th century. Crisply modeled figures with a white glaze were popular as were joss-stick holders, brush pots, Dogs of Fo, libation cups. The devotional objects produced at Dehua “conformed to the stipulations of the early Ming period, not only in their whiteness. They were probably used in the shrines that every Chinese home possessed. ”The numerous Dehua porcelain factories today make figures. During the Cultural Revolution “Dehua artisans applied their very best skills to produce immaculate statuettes of the Great Leader and the heroes of the revolution. Portraits of the stars of the new opera in their most famous roles were produced on a truly massive scale. ”Mao Zedong figures later fell out of favor but have been revived for foreign collectors. Precise dating of blanc de Chine of the Ming and Qing dynasties is often difficult because the conservatism of the Dehua potters led them to similar pieces for decades or even for centuries. There are blanc de Chine figures being made in Dehua today little different from those made in the Ming dynasty, notable artists in blanc de Chine, such as the late Ming period He Chaozong, signed their creations with their seals
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