Think how primitive it must have been to go to a
banquet of the Lord-Mayor of London arrayed in your silk or velvet
costume, and eat roasted ox with your fingers from a trencher, or
square slab of wood! Yet such a procedure was considered entirely
proper in those days."
Theo was much amused.
"Afterward for quite a long time dishes of brown stoneware were in
vogue; and then as an improvement on those came a coarse
greenish-yellow type of ware. It was about 1645 that into England
strayed a few Dutch potters who began to make a reproduction of Delft
pottery. In the meantime in quite another part of the country a
salt-glazed stoneware of far better quality than any previously
manufactured made its appearance. To this the name _porcellane_ was
given, and although the product was in reality simply a gres the fact
is interesting because it is the first time that we have the word
applied to china. It probably came from the Italian noun _porcellana_,
meaning a shell, which the thinness of the new ware may have
suggested; or the term may have been derived from the French word
_pourcelaine_, a word used for any material from which a sculptor
models his statues.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88