PORCELAIN AND FAIENCE.
239
signs to a glazed surface to the decoration of his porcelain. The earliest known date of this printed ware is 1757, upon a jug now in the collection of the Museum of Practical Geology, London. The design is in black, over the glaze; and the pieces so decorated were exposed to the heat of the enamel kiln only. The invention of under-glaze printing soon followed, the designs being transferred to the unglazed biscuit. Robert Hancock, who had studied under Ravenet at the enamel works at Battersea in 1750, was the engraver of the early designs for transfer.
The earliest Worcester porcelain, according to Mr. Binns, * was made of a frit body, and he thinks that the following formula is similar to that used by Dr. Wall: sand, 120 parts y gypsum, 7 ; soda, 7 ; alum, 7 ; salt, 14; and nitre, 40. After fritting, it was crushed, and 75 parts were Mixed with 15 of whiting and 10 of pipe-clay. The glaze used contained 38 per cent, of red-lead, 27 of sand, 11 of ground flints, 15 of potash, and 9 of carbonate of soda. For common ware an inferior paste was made, containing steatite. This gave a body less dense than the other, and of a yellowish color.
Attention was early given to the imitation of Chinese and Japanese wares, induced by the high estimation in which oriental porcelain, or china, was then held. And with that depraved pandering to public prejudice, which seems to be °ue of the great vices of the ceramic art, false marks were sometimes affixed, especially to these early imitations.
A crescent is one of the earliest ordinary marks, as, also, a script W, and afterwards the name or initials of the firm, e ither stamped in or printed. A Chinese fretted square, Marked in blue, was frequently employed. Oriental charac- ters were also marked in blue on some of the pieces, and a specimen in the Geological Museum has the Dresden mark of hvo crossed swords in blue under the glaze. *
Specimens were shown of the beautiful tea-set presented to Lord Dudley on his marriage. The decoration consists of Birqnoise blue enamel, put on in drops near together, so that
p A Century of Potting in the City of Worcester, being the History of the Royal ^orcelain Works from 1751 to 1851,” by R. W. Binns, F. S. A., I 860 , p. 40. Also, in, a Beclie, “ British Pottery and Porcelain.”