Page 6 - The Collectors Hand-Book, Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain Asian Marks begin on Page 130

VI

Porcelain. Pottery includes stoneware and enamelled or
earthenware that more vitreous and
glazed ; porcelain,
transparent composition of china clay and petuntse or
ground flint, which is more akin to glass.
For the purposes of this Hand book it is unnecessary to
explain in further detail the differences in composition
and texture of the two classes of Ceramics, but speaking
breaks with a surface of its frac-
generally, pottery rough
tured parts, as would an ordinary piece of terra-cotta,
while porcelain breaks with smooth surfaces, similar to
glass.
To the Pottery class belong all those faMtjues of
enamelled earthenware called MAIOI.ICA, FAYKNCK, or
DELFT, these being the Italian, French, and Dutch
subdivisions respectively, although the terms have become
intermixed, and casually applied to all classes of faience.
The most famous of the Italian maiolica, first made in
the later part of the fifteenth century, under the personal
and of the dukes or
patronage encouragement petty
of the states and duchies into which
sovereigns little
was then Gubbio,
Italy divided, are those of Urbino,
Castel Durantc, Pcsaro, Faenza, and Caflagiolo, with many
others, the marks of which occupy the first fifty pages
of the Hand-book. Of the individual artists who deco-
rated the ware, none is so celebrated as Maestro Giorgio
Andreoli, more commonly known as Maestro Giorgio, who
worked at Gubbio. Several of the characteristic and
diversified signatures of this famous artist are given for
the collector's reference, but as genuine specimens of this
master have been so thoroughly searched for, and ab-
sorbed into museums and well-known private collections,
the unskilled collector should be very sceptical in accept-