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Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine,Tamara Préaud, curator. 1997. The Sėvres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry (Bard Graduate Center, New York), Glossary, s.v. "Creamware: "In France it was known as faïence fine. in the Netherlands as Engels porselein, and in Italy as terraglia inglese.Osborne, 140 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.The standard monograph is Donald C. Towner, Creamware (Faber & Faber) 1978
Variations of creamware were known as "tortoiseshell ware" or "Whieldon ware" were developed by the master potter Thomas Whieldon with coloured stains under the glaze. It served as an inexpensive substitute for the soft-paste porcelains being developed by contemporary English manufactories, initially in competition with Chinese export porcelains. It was often made in the same fashionable and refined styles as porcelain.
The most notable producer of creamware was Josiah Wedgwood, who perfected the ware, beginning during his partnership with Thomas Whieldon. Wedgwood supplied his creamware to Queen Charlotte and Catherine the Great (in the famous Frog Service) and used the trade name Queen's ware. Later, around 1779, he was able to lighten the cream colour to a bluish white by using cobalt in the lead overglaze. Wedgwood sold this more desirable product under the name pearl ware. The Leeds Pottery (producing "Leedsware") was another very successful producer.
Wedgwood and his English competitors sold creamware throughout Europe, sparking local industries, that largely replaced faience.Jana Kybalova, European Creamware. 1989/ and to the United States.Osborne, 140; Creamware for the American market is the subject of Patricia A. Halfpenny, Robert S. Teitelman and Ronald Fuchs, Success to America: Creamware for the American Market 2010. One contemporary writer and friend of Wedgwood claimed it was ubiquitous.Simeon Shaw, The Chemistry of the several natural and artificial heterogeneous compounds used in manufacturing porcelain, glass, and pottery, etc.. London: for the author (1837), p. 465 This led to local industries developing throughout Europe to meet demand.Donald Towner, Creamware, London: Faber & Faber (1978) , Chapter 10 There was also a strong export market to the United States.Patricia A Halfpenny, Robert S Teitelman and Ronald Fuchs, Success to America: Creamware for the American Market. Woodbridge: Antiquw Collectors Club (2010) The success of creamware had killed the demand for tin-glazed earthenware and pewter vessels alike and the spread of cheap, good-quality, mass-produced creamware to Europe had a similar impact on Continental tin-glazed faience factories.Jana Kybalova, European Creamware. London: Hamlyn (1989) By the 1780s Josiah Wedgwood was exporting as much as 80% of his output to Europe.Robin Hildyard, English Pottery 1620 – 1840, London: Victoria & Albert Museum (2005) p. 93
Around 1740 a fluid Ceramic glaze in which the ingredients were mixed and ground in water was invented, possibly by Enoch Booth of Tunstall, Staffordshire, according to one early historian, although this is disputed.Simeon Shaw, History of the Staffordshire Potteries, Hanley, Printed for the author (1829), p 18Robin Hildyard, English Pottery 1620 – 1840, London: Victoria & Albert Museum (2005) p. 82 The method involved first firing the ware to a biscuit state, and then glazing and re-firing it.
Foremost of the pioneers of creamware in the Staffordshire Potteries was Thomas Whieldon. Although he has become popularly associated almost exclusively with tortoiseshell creamware, in fact he produced a wide variety of creamware. He first mentions 'Cream Colour' in 1749.
The young Josiah Wedgwood was in partnership with Thomas Whieldon from 1754 to 1759 and after Wedgwood had left to set up independently at Ivy House, he immediately directed his efforts to the development of creamware.Robin Hildyard, English Pottery 1620 – 1840, London: Victoria & Albert Museum (2005) p. 80
Wedgwood rebelled against the use of coloured glazes, declaring as early as 1766 that he was clearing his warehouse of coloured ware as he was 'heartily sick of the commodity'.Pat Halfpenny, "Early Creamware to 1770," in Creamware and Pearlware. The Fifth Exhibition from the Northern Ceramic Society. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum &Art Gallery (1986). pp. 14-19.
Wedgwood improved creamware by introducing Kaolinite into both the body and glaze and so was able to produce creamware of a much paler colour, lighter and stronger and more delicately worked, perfecting the ware by about 1770. His superior creamware, known as 'Queen's ware', was supplied to Queen Charlotte and Catherine the Great and later became hugely popular.Donald Towner, Creamware, London: Faber & Faber (1978) , p. 21 There were few changes to creamware after about 1770 and the Wedgwood formula was gradually adopted by most manufacturers.
This method could be varied by transferring the oily print onto a 'glue-bat' – a slab of flexible gelatine that could be laid on the workbench whilst a globular pot was carefully rolled over it. Glue-bats allowed more subtle engraving techniques to be used.Robin Hildyard, English Pottery 1620 – 1840, London: Victoria & Albert Museum (2005) p. 228 Underglaze transfer printing was also sometimes used, directly onto the porous biscuit body.
Transfer-printing was specialist and so generally outsourced in the early years: Sadler & Green of Liverpool were exclusive printers to Josiah Wedgwood by 1763, for example.Robin Hildyard, English Pottery 1620 – 1840, London: Victoria & Albert Museum (2005) p. 86P Holdway, "Techniques of Transfer-printing on Cream Coloured Earthenware," in Creamware and Pearlware. The Fifth Exhibition from the Northern Ceramic Society. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery (1986). pp. 20-23N Stretton, "On-glaze Transfer-printing on Creamware: The first fifty Years," Creamware and Pearlware. The Fifth Exhibition from the Northern Ceramic Society. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery (1986). , pp. 24-29.
Whilst Staffordshire had taken the lead, creamware came to be developed in a number of large potting centres where stoneware was already being produced, eventually replacing stoneware entirely. These included Derbyshire, Liverpool, Yorkshire (including the Leeds pottery) and Swansea.
Attribution of pieces to particular factories has always been difficult because virtually no creamware was marked prior to Josiah Wedgwood's manufacture of it in Burslem. At the time manufacturers frequently supplied wares to one another to supplement stocks and ideas were often exchanged or copied. In addition, factories usually sent out their wares to outside specialist enamellers or transfer-printers for decoration – decoration in-house was only gradually adopted. For this reason, several manufacturers usually shared the same decorator or printer and tended to use the same or very similar patterns.
Collectors, dealers and curators alike were frustrated in their efforts to ascribe pots to individual factories: it is frequently impossible to do so.Donald Towner, Creamware, London: Faber & Faber (1978) , p. 22Terrence A Lockett, "Problems of Attribution," in Creamware and Pearlware. The Fifth Exhibition from the Northern Ceramic Society. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery (1986). pp. 52-58 Archaeological excavations of pottery sites in Staffordshire and elsewhere have helped provide some better-established typology to enable progress in attribution.A R Mountford, "Thomas Whieldon's Manufactory at Fenton Vivian," Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, Vol. 8 pt. 2 (1972)David Barker and Pat Halfpenny, Unearthing Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent: City Museum & Art Gallery (1990)
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