The manufacture of porcelain in Holland was first started at Weesp, near Amsterdam, in 1764, by Count von Gronsveldt, with the assistance of some runaway workmen from Saxony. He produced some fine hard-paste porcelain, but owing to the great expense of the establishment, and the disproportionate returns, partly occasioned by the growing importation of Oriental porcelain, the Count’s means were exhausted, and the effects of the factory were sold off in 1771. In 1772, however, the Protestant pastor of Oude Loosdrecht, named De Moll, re-opened the manufactory at Loosdrecht, midway “between Amsterdam and Utrecht, where it was carried on with considerable success until his death in 1782. The works were continued at Loosdrecht by De Moll’s partners until 1784, when they removed to Amstel. The characteristics of this fabrique are: Hard paste and a fine white body, with decorations generally of landscapes and country scenes, or single figures of Dutch peasants (specimens in the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street).

          Other specimens have gilt borders, and light blue flowers between green leaves. The earliest mark is a W, for” Weesp,” and the crossed swords, probably in imitation of Dresden. The letters M. O. L. stand for “Manufacteur Oude Loosdrecht,” with a probable reference also to the name of the pastor, De Moll. At Amstel the marks were the initial A, and the word “Amstel” in full. All these marks were painted, but we also occasionally find the O. L. scratched in the paste. The late Sir A. W. Franks considered that the mark “W.J. Haag” was that of the Wallendorf fabrique, The mark A. D. was used after the removal to Oude Amstel in 1784, the initials being those of the director, a German named Daenber. These works were closed about the end of the century when a new factory was started at Niewer Amstel under the name of George Dommer & Co. The mark then used the word “Amstel” in full. Though supported by the King of Holland, who granted a large annual subsidy, the enterprise did not flourish, and the manufacture ceased in 1810.

          About the same time a fresh company was started in Amsterdam itself, under style of A. La Fond & Co., but was not of long duration. The mark was the name of the firm. The accompanying marks of the Batavian lion are also attributed by Jacquemart to the Amsterdam fabrique. They are generally painted in blue. This lion is also found with the initials A. D.

          The kind of majolica which is known as “Abruzzi ware” is not the production of any particular fabrique, but the term is generally applied to specimens which it is difficult to assign to any of the more distinguished Italian potteries. The province of Naples was among the first, if not the very first, to produce majolica. Specimens, and fragments of specimens, have been discovered during excavations, of as early a time as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

          The invention of Luca della Robbia was apparently adopted in Castelli, a hamlet in the Abruzzi district, and in Pisa and Pesaro. The kind of majolica, however, which is now known as “Abruzzi ware” is the more modern production of a number of unimportant potteries near Naples. It is decorative, but not by any means the best kind of majolica, and generally may be said to have the appearance of inferior Urbino ware, the prevailing colors being yellow and green, subjects either mythological or scriptural scrolls, cupids, or grotesques.

          Mr. Giuseppe Raffaeli mentions the existence in 1361 of a certain Giovanni dai Bistuggi, or John of Biscuits, a name probably referring to “biscuit” ware, ware which has been subjected to a preliminary firing but is not yet glazed. He also speaks of a certain Maestro Gentile, who furnished the Ducal palace with vessels in 1363. The most ancient dated piece is the beautiful bowl which belonged to Mr. H. T. Hope, dated 12th September, 1508.

          At a later period, a potter named Guido di Savino worked at Castel Durante, who, according to Piccolpasso, transported to Antwerp the knowledge of the manufacture of Italian maiolica. It was also from Castel Durante that Giovanni Tesio and Lucio Gatti, in 1530, introduced it into Corfu, and in 1545 that Mr. Francesco del Vasaro established himself in Venice.

          About 1490, the following artists were working: Pier del Vasaro, the Sabatini, Picci, Superchina, Savini, Bernacchia, Marini and Morelli. The manufacture was at its perfection in 1525 - 30, and continued to produce good wares even till 1580. In connection with istoriati pieces and mythological subjects, the following artists are recorded: Luca and Angiolo Picchi, Pier Francesco Calze, Ubaldo della Morica, Simone da Colonello, the Fontana, the Appoloni, Giorgio Picci, Lucio, Bernardino and Ottaviano Dolci.

          Piccolpasso, a potter of this place, in his interesting book describes all the various wares and patterns, illustrated by drawings in pen and ink, as well as its manufacture, processes, utensils etc. About 1623 it was created a city, and took the name of Urbania after Pope Urban VIII. In 1722, Urbania was the only fabrique which existed in the Duchy or Urbino, where articles of utility only were made. But Cardinal Stoppani brought painters from other places, and endeavored to put fresh life into the trade of Urbania.

          The best artists at Urbania were the Lazzarini, the Frattini and the Biagini, who painted from prints by Sadeler, Martin de Vos, the Caracci, Bassano, Tempesta etc. The arabesques with grotesque heads, frequently on blue ground, are boldly drawn. Cornucopiae, designed and shaded with light blue, touched with yellow and orange, brown and green, mostly on a large scale of pattern.

          We are indebted for much that we know of this fabrique to Giambattista Passeri, who has striven to do all honour to his native country, and as its history was not written until nearly two centuries after its establishment, we must make allowances for his amour propre. Many of the pieces of ancient style with yellow metallic lustre, formerly attributed to Pesaro, are now by common consent referred to Deruta.

          Passeri quotes a certain Joannis a Bocalibus of Forli, who in 1396 established himself at Pesaro. In 1462 mention is made of the loan of a large sum for the enlargement of a manufactory of vessels. The borrowers, Ventura di Mastro, Simone da Siena of the Casa Piccolomini, and Matteo di Raniere of Cagli, bought in the following year a considerable quantity of sand ” du lac de Perouse,” which entered into the composition of fayence. To this date Passeri places the introduction of the manufacture of maiolica.

          In 1546, an edict was passed in favour of Pesaro by Jean Sforza, forbidding the introduction from other fabriques of any but common vessels for oil and water. To the same effect were two other edicts of 1508 and 1532, and another by Guido Ubaldo in 1552; in this last the potters of Pesaro, Mo. Bernardino Gagliardino, Mo. Girolamo Lanfranchi, and Mo. Rinaldo, “vasari et boccalari,” engage to supply the town and country with vases, and pieces painted with historical subjects, under certain conditions. Mr. Gironimo, the vase-maker, who signs the plates in the margin (page 77), is probably the Girolamo Lanfranchi here mentioned. His son Giacomo succeeded him, who in 1562 invented the application of gold to maiolica, fixed by fire.

          Another corroboration of Passeri’s statement, and of the importance of the Lanfranchi establishment, occurs in an anonymous document published by the Marquis Giuseppe Campori (Notizie della majolica e della porcellana di Ferrara). It is preserved among the archives of Modena, and is dated Pesaro, 26th October, 1660. It relates how the Duke of Modena had been entertained at the house of the Signora Contessa Violante, “con tutta quella domestichezza,” which he desired. How he was presented with six bacili filled with delicacies made by the nuns, sent to him by the daughters of the Countess, and which were kept in the dishes. That some of his family wishing to buy majoliche painted by Raffaelle of Urbino, a great quantity of bacili and tazzoni was brought to them, not by 4 Raffaelle, but painted by a certain ancient professor of that kind of painting denominated “il Gabiccio”—” le furono portate gran quantita di bacili e di tazzoni o fruttere, non già de Raffaelle ma dipinti da un tale antico Professore di tali pitture denominato it Gabiccio,” who, as the Marquis Campori suggests, was probably that Girolamo di Lanfranchi, the maestro of the establishment at the Gabice. It then goes on to relate that these dealers in antiquities, like some of their brethren of the present day, asked too much money, to wit, a hundred doble for a rinfrescatore or cistern ; certainly well painted, but for which they offered twelve, and that they only succeeded in acquiring another rinfrescatore, and a large turtle that would serve as a basin or a dish, painted with grotesques and figures on the bowl and cover, for which they paid twenty-one doble. The Marquis Campori observes that the cover of this tartaruga was sold not long since in Modena to an amateur, and when last in Florence the writer learnt that such a piece was then in the hands of Signor Rusca of that city. He had himself seen at Rome the lower portion of a large turtle or tortoise shaped dish in the Palazzo Barberini, which may perchance belong to the cover in Florence, or be the other half of a similar piece.

          Gubbio, in the Duchy of Urbino, is known to us principally by the works of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, who seems to have monopolised the ruby metallic lustre with which he enriched not only his own productions, but put in the finishing-touches in metallic colours on plates of other artists from Urbino and Castel Durante.

          Giorgio was son of Pietro Andreoli, a gentleman of Pavia, and was established at Gubbio when young, according to Passeri, with his brothers Salimbene and Giovanni. In 1498 he obtained the rights of citizenship and filled some municipal offices. He was a statuary as well as a painter of fayence, several of his sculptures in marble being extant. His early pieces, mentioned below, are without the lustre which subsequently rendered him so famous. The first piece on which his metallic lustre is revealed to us by his signature is dated 1518; his last is dated 1541 ; quoted by Sir J. C. Robinson from a piece in the Pasolini Collection, signed by Mr. Giorgio, which he says cannot implicitly be relied on. The figure of St. Sebastian, modelled in relief on a tile dated 1501 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is attributed to Giorgio. The earliest specimen signed and dated is a plate with a border of trophies, painted in 1517 and lustred in 1518, and was formerly in the Napier (Shandon) Collection. It is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Another plate of the same service, but with a different mark, is in the British Museum.

          In 1537 his son Vincentio or Cencio, the only one who followed his father’s profession, was associated with him in his works. Vincentio is supposed to be denoted by the N seen on some of the Gubbio plates. Perestino was another successor of W. Giorgio, whose mark is found noticed below, but we have no certain information respecting him. One of the finest specimens of Giorgio is the plate painted with the Three Graces, signed on the back with one of the many varieties of his signature, and dated 1525.

          In Urbino, or its immediate neighbourhood, at a place called Fermignano, existed at the latter part of the fifteenth century a manufactory of maiolica. Pungileone cites a certain potter of Urbino named Giovanni di Donino Garducci in the year 1477, and a member of the same family, Francesco Garducci, who in 1501 received the commands of the Cardinal of Carpaccio to make various vases. Ascanio del fu Guido is also mentioned as working in 1502, but the works of all these have disappeared or are attributed to other fabriques, and it si not until 1520 that we can identify any of the artists named by Pungileone: Federigio di Giannantonio, Nicolo di Gabriele, Gian Maria Mariani, Simone di Antonio Mariani, to whom Lazari attributes a plate in the Museum of Padua, signed S. A., Luca del fu Bartholomeo and Cesare Cari of Faenza.

          The workshop of Guido Durantino was celebrated in the beginning of the sixteenth century, for the Connetable de Montmorency, and amateur of works of art, commanding in 1535 a service, of which several pieces bearing his arms are still extant. About the same time flourished the distinguished Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo, whose works are so well known and so highly appreciated. He usually painted after the designs and engravings of Raphael, not always adhering strictly to the same grouping of the originals. Of the same school was Nicolo di Gabriele.

          Another celebrated painter of maiolica of the middle of the sixteenth century was Orazio Fontana, originally of Castel Durante, whose family name appears to have been Pellipario, Fontana being a surname taken in consequence of the profession of several members of the family. The first whose name occurs is Nicola Pellipario, or Nicola da Urbino, who was alive in 1540, and had a son Guido, named in a notarial document as early as 1520; the latter had three sons, Orazio, Camillo, and Nicola. An early signed piece by this artist is in the British Museum, and a facsimile of the inscription on the plate, which represents a sacrifice to Diana, is given in Dr. Fortnum’s Catalogue of Maiolica in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which should be referred to for notices of the chief maiolica artists, and of the many characteristics distinguishing their various works. An exhaustive work on Maiolica was published by Mr. Fortnum in 1896.

          Guido, the father, survived Orazio, and his name is found on the plateau which was in the Fountaine Collection, which states that it was made in Urbino, in the shop of Maestro Guido Fontana, vase-maker. Orazio remained with his father up to the year 1565, when he separated and set up a botega on his own account in the Forgo San Polo; he died in 1571. Camillo, his brother, appears to have been invited to Ferrara by Duke Alfonso II. in 1567, to assist in resuscitating the maiolica manufacture of that city, founded by Alfonso I, many years before. Of Nicola, the third son, little is known, except that his name is incidentally mentioned in a document dated 1570. The period of the highest excellence of Urbino maiolica was from about 1520 to 1560, particularly in the dishes and shaped pieces painted in arabesques after the style of Raffaele.

          There are many place in England where kilns for making pottery have been discovered. New Forest Ware hails from Crockhill and it existed until the firth century. Kilns with urns were found at a depth of 26 feet. There were also lamps, bottles and urns of the coarser sort. Remains of extensive potteries have been found in the western district of the New Forest, in Hampshire.

MORTARIA
          Among culinary utensils used by the Romans in this country was a broad shallow vessel termed a mortarium. It had on the bottom of the interior sharp angular pebbles embedded in the ware, for the purpose of triturating vegetable substances, or bruising them with liquids, being provided with a spout to pour off the mixture when rubbed to the required consistency. It had a broad rim, which turned over outwards about half-way, apparently for te purpose of concentrating the heat round the vessel when placed upon the fire. On this rim is generally found the name of the potter. These mortaria are exceedingly numerous, not only in London, but in other parts of England, wherever Roman buildings have been discovered. At Headington, near Oxford, fragments were found of at least two hundred of them. They vary in size from 7″ to 2 feet in diameter, and are about 5″ deep. Most of them, when found, give evidence of great wear, having generally a hole rubbed through them. Mortaria are sometimes found of the red lustrous ware called Samian. These are provided with spouts of lions’ heads or masks, through which the liquor was poured, and the grains of hard stone forced into the paste inside it, as usual, for the purpose of trituration.

AMPHORAE
          Large amphorae have been discovered, capable of holding then or twelve gallons, mostly in fragments. They were in general use for storing wine, oil or other liquids. These large vessels were frequently used to contain funereal deposits, the upper part being cut off and fitted on again as a cover. Glass cinerary urns, filled with charred bones collected from the funeral pyre, are found within them. Smaller amphorae are common amongst remains of Roman domestic vessels found in the metropolis, some of elegant forms.

LAMPS
          The lamps found in England are seldom of bronze, but almost invariably of terra-cotta, with projections at the side instead of handles. They were usually placed upon flat earthenware trays, with upright ridges and handles, into which they fitted, and were thus carried about. These lamps are, with few exceptions, of a rude character, being mostly without ornaments or potters’ names. Sometimes they are found with two or more burners. These larger lamps were suspended from the top of a high tripod or stand with a very long stem.

TILES
          Tiles were made of red clay, very compact and well fired, and moreover extremely durable. For those made upwards of 1500 years since are as firm at the present day as when first made. Bonding tiles were used to bind the courses of stone firmly together, and in the walls of Roman buildings we usually find several courses of Kentish rag or other stone, and then a double row of those bonding tiles. They were also used to form the arches over doors and windows. They are generally marked with semicircles at on of their ends. They hypocaust tiles are square, and were used for constructing the pillars which supported the floor above the hypocaust, and between which the flames of the furnace permeated. They are frequently stamped with the name of the legion or cohort which was at the time stationed at Londinium.

          A more ornamental kind of drinking cup was made at Castor, in Northamptonshire. The discoveries of certain Mr. Artis in that neighbourhood revealed quantities of this ware in the kilns, as placed by the potters for baking. This gentleman traced the potteries to an extent of upwards of twenty miles on the banks of the Nen. These vessels are ornamented in relief with hunting subjects, representations of fishes, scrolls, foliage, and human figures; the mode of operation seems to have been by means of sharp and blunt skewer implements and a slip of suitable consistency. These implements were of two kinds, one thick enough to carry sufficient slip for the head, neck, and body of animals, and another small enough to delineate the details, as the tongue, eye, lower jaws, legs and tail. There appears to have been no retouching after the slip trailed from the implement. These vessels were glazed after the figures were laid on, which are usually of a different color from the body of the ware, as white on light.

          An example of Castor ware is an elegant drinking cup found at Winchester. It is 8″ high and made out of yellowish-brown paste. The glaze on the largest upper portion is black, with the scroll ornament in slip of a white pipeclay. It has two bands of tool-work made before glazing. The stem of the cup has a red glaze. Some other cups of a higher artistic order, with subjects from the heathen mythology, have been found. One at Bedford Purlieus had a representation of Hercules delivering Hesione from the monster. Another was found at Colchester, with a hunting subject, two gladiators and two men leading a bear. These all have their names written over their heads, and are wonderfully well done, considering that they are laid on in slip with a sort of a skewer, and not molded.

          This kind of pottery has also been occasionally discovered in Netherlands and Germany, where they were perhaps imported from England.

          Upon the banks of the Medway, near the village of Upchurch, there was, in the time of the occupation of Britain by the Romans, a very extensive pottery. Along the shore for many miles may be observed vast quantities of Roman ware in fragments; in fact, the mud or clay when the tide is out is found to be completely filled with Roman pottery. The pottery is of a fine and hard texture; its color is usually a blue black, produced by baking it in the smoke of vegetable substances. The ornaments of a flat stick notched at the end, which was passed over the surface of the moist clay in parallel, zigzag, or crossed lines, leaving the pattern incuse. In some, the ornament consists of small dots or pellets encircling the vessel in squares, circles, and diamond patterns, which appear to have been stencilled on the surface, usually of a different color to the body of the ware, but mostly white. Some of the vessels found here are of a red color, bottle-shaped, having been subjected to a greater degree of heat in the burning.

          There is another description of ware, which is, no doubt, of native manufacture, but scarce and seldom found entire; it is of a light brown or ash-colored clay, with crinkled ornament in relief round the edges, and unglazed.