Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine, in the Netherlands as Engels porselein, and in Italy as terraglia inglese. It was created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, who refined the materials and techniques of salt-glazed earthenware towards a finer, thinner, whiter body with a brilliant glassy lead glaze, which proved so ideal for domestic ware that it supplanted white salt-glaze wares by about 1780. It was popular until the 1840s.
Josiah Wedgwood: Tea and coffee service, c. 1775. Transfer-printed in purple enamel by Guy Green of Liverpool. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
English loving-cup, 1774
Wedgwood ice-bucket (glacier) in three parts, 1770–1775, Queen's ware
Josiah Wedgwood: Four creamware plates depicting Aesop's Fables. Burslem, about 1771–1775. Printed by Guy Green, Liverpool. On display at the British Museum, London.
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below 1,200 °C (2,190 °F). Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ceramic glaze, and such a process is used for the great majority of modern domestic earthenware. The main other important types of pottery are porcelain, bone china, and stoneware, all fired at high enough temperatures to vitrify. End applications include tableware and decorative ware such as figurines.
Painted, incised and glazed earthenware. Dated 10th century, Iran. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
Top section of a water jug or habb. Earthenware. Late 12th-early 13th century Iraq or Syria. Brooklyn Museum
Tea served in a kulhar, which are disposable earthenware teacups in South Asia
Terracotta flower pots with terracotta tiles in the background