Amoitg the northern nations, especially the Celts and Scandinavians, long prior to the Roman conquests of Gaul and Britain, at the remote age of the stone and bronze periods, large and small vases, perhaps originally employed for domestic, but subse quently for mortuary, purposes, are found amongst the cromlechs, the tumuli,and graves of northern Europe. They are formed of a coarse clay, mixed with small pebbles, and have been feebly baked by surrounding them with hay, dried ferns, or other combustible vegetable matters, which have been burned inside and around them. The interior of the walls is black; the exterior, of a pale brown color. Their mouths are large, the orna ments, hatchings, and rude line sometimes making an elaborate pattern or tattooing all over the vase. Those from Britain were called bascalida, or baskets, by the Romans. A modification of this class of ware was continued under the Saxons and Merovingians, and is distinct from the Gallo-Roman and Romano-British potteries; the clay being bet ter baked, and the ornaments, stamped or impressed from a mold, more regular. The use of pottery among these races was to a great extent superseded by glass, metal, and other substances for drinking and culinary vessels, and few or no specimens of medieval unglazed vessels are known. Terra-cotta, indeed, continued to be applied for making figures from the 14th to the 18111 c. in Europe; but in England even the use of bricks, a manufacture difficult to have been lost, was restored by Alfred. Unglazed ware was, in fact, superseded or abandoned in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire; but in modern times the use of terra-cotta and such like ware is found extended all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, varying in texture and excellence from the coarse flower-pots to the thin and graceful water-bottles of the Arabs and modern Egyptians. Even the Nigritic races continue to manufacture a feebly-baked earthenware, rudely colored with pigments not baked on the ware. In the new world the existence of unglazed earthernware seems Iodate from the most remote antiquity. The vases and other objects found in the north ern portions of America, indeed, are of the rudest kind, and bear a striking resemblance to those of the early Scandinavian, Celtic, and Teutonic graves, in paste, shape, and ornamentation. The Mexican and Peruvian potteries, however, evince a much greater mastery of the art, and both are modeled with great spirit, gayly colored, and profusely ornamented. Some of the oldest Peruvian wares, indeed, rival in their modeling Euro pean art, but they never attain to glazing. The other unglazed wares of the new world differ according to the localities, where they have been manufactured, and in the most highly-civilized portions reflect or rival the arts of the people by which it has been col onized. Those of the existing native races die very feeble, and the processes are some times accompanied by magic ceremonies. The pottery of the southern hemisphere is quite recent, as none of the races seem to have been acquainted with the art. The Fijis, indeed, have a ware glazed with the resin of a tree, but it appears to have been derived from Europe.
The knowledge of glazes originally acquired by the Egyptians and Assyrians was con - tinned under the Roman empire at Alexandria, and appears to have been transmitted to the Persians, Moors, and Arabs. Faienees, and enameled bricks, and plaques were in use among them in the 12th c., and among the Hindus in the 14th c. A.D. The Moors introduced into Spain the use of glazed tiles about 711 A.D., examples of which, called azulejos, as old as the 13th c., are found in the Alhambra. Besides these, the man ufacture of glazed or enameled faiences in Spain, distinguished by a metallic iridescence, came into use from the 13th c. in Spain. In Italy they arc supposed to have been intro duced as early as the conquest of Majorca by the Pisans, 1115 A.D. ; but the first appear-, ance of Italian enameled faience, the precurser of modern porcelain, does not date earlier than about 1420, when it was used for subjects in relief by Lucca della Robbia. About a century later plates and other ware were manufactured at Pisaro and Gubbio, deco rated with subjects derived from the compositions of Raphael and Marc Antonio. painted in gay and brilliant colors. But the establishment was abandoned in 1574, although pieces of majolica continued to be fabricated in various cities of Italy till the 18th cen tury. From Italy this enameled ware passed into France in 1590 with Catharine.de
Medici, where it was manufactured till the end of-the 17th century. In 1555 the cele brated Palissy discovered at Salutes the art of glazing or enameling a gray paste, and Introduced dishes and other objects with fruit, fish, and animals, molded from life, dis tributed over the surface, as a kind of ornamental ware. At the same time, or earlier, was made what is called Henry II. ware, and which is now so precious, consisting of white ornamental pieces. Glazed or Norman tiles, however, as they are called, date from two centuries before. At the close of t-he 13th c. glazed ware was made in Alsace; but it was not till two centuries later that majolica was fabricated at Nuremberg; and the manufacture was continued in various parts of Germany till the 18th century. Delft, which gave its name to its own fabric, is said to have produced a glazed ware as early as 1360, and continued to do so till the 19th century.
Holland was chiefly celebrated for its bottles of stoneware, glazed by salt, called bel larmines, graybeards, or bonifaces, and for its tankards, which were imported all over Europe, in the 16th c., and are repeatedly found in London excavations. In England glazed tiles for religious purposes were made by the monastic orders from the 12th to the 16th c.; and glazed bottles, jugs, and cups are found of the time of Henry II.; while Edward III. favored the establishment of potteries in England. The English wares, however, were superseded by Delft and Dutch stonewares till the close of, the 17th c., when the coarse wares made at Burslem were improved by the discovery of salt and other glazes. Some Germans, named Elers, from Nuremberg, settled there, and pro duced an improved ware called the red Japanese; but finding that the secret was discovered by Astbury, left for Lambeth, where they established themselves in 1710. From this period various improvements were introduced by Astbury, Booth, and finally by Wedgwood, who discovered more suitable clays in 1759, and called to his assistance the arts of design, by the employment of Flaxinan for bas-reliefs and figures. The applications of copper-plate printing and gilding were subsequently discovered. Still later, other materials, as felspar and bones, were used in the composition of this pottery. Delft-stone and other wares were made at different places, as Liverpool, Low estoft, and elsewhere; but, after different vicissitudes, most of the potteries have disap peared, except those of the stoneware at Lambeth and Vauxhall.
None of this ware, however, was of the nature of the Chinese porcelain which had been imported by the Arabs in the 13th c., was known in Italy in 1330, and was imported into France as early as 1370, andinto England much later. The name porce lain, from porcellana, an obscure Portuguee word, supposed to mean a shell, is applied to a mixture of alumina or kaolin and silex or petuntse, which, when baked, does not fuse at a temperature as high as 140° of Wedgewood's pyrometer, and the glaze of which is incapable of being scratched by a knife. This porcelain, called "hard porcelain," is said to have been invented at Sin-ping in China, about 185 B. C., and rose to great impor tance at King-to-chin, 557 A.D., where, in 1712, 3,000 furnaces were in activity, and where the manufacture is still carried on. There are.about 18 renowned potteries in the empire. T, he art of pottery in China is said to be as old as 2599 B.c. In Japan, hard porcelain dates from translucent porcelain was made about 672 A,D.; but between 1211 and 1221, Kotosiro, a Japanese potter, went to China to improve his process. There are 18 celebrated potteries in Japan; and in modern times, the pieces exported come chiefly from Imali, in the province of Eizen. In 164-4, the Dutch exported 44,943 pieces from Japan. At the beginning of the 16th c., the porcelain of China began to be extensively imported into •irope, and various unsuccessful attempts were made to discover the secret of its manufacture, but without success, both as to the material and the process. The Persians, indeed, arc said to have produced translucent pottery about the 15th c. A.D.