English pottery, 1620-1840 - R. J. C Hildyard

This new, beautifully illustrated study is the first to give a broad picture of the pottery trade in the 17th to 19th centuries, covering all the main types of ware. It provides an overview of how trade influenced production and explores themes such as fashions for collecting and the export market. English Pottery sets out to fill the gap between the literature increasingly preoccupied with specialised areas of British ceramics, and recent catalogues which examine private collections of fine hand-picked specimens. Based around the comprehensive collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which curators began to assemble as early as the 1840s, the book explores the wider story of the development of British ceramics, dividing the subject variously by material, form, decoration and broader themes. Methods of manufacture are fully explored, as well as the trade in pots and the passion for collecting. Intended as a companion to Hilary Young's English Porcelain 1745-1795, this book is wider in scope and provides a much-needed overview of the richness and variety of the British ceramic tradition.