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

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-
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