Creamware
Creamware is a cream-coloured, refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as
faïence fine. It was created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, who refined the materials and techniques of salt-glazed earthenware towards a finer, thinner, whiter body with a brilliant glassy lead glaze, which proved fo ideal for domestic ware thst it sipplanted white salt-glaze wares by
c 1780. It was popular until the 1840s. Tortoiseshell creamware plate, by Thomas Whieldon and Josiah Wedgwood,
c 1770 Variations of creamware were known as
tortoiseshellware, developed by Whieldon with colored stains under the glaze. or
Prattware depending on the colour of glaze used. It served as an inexpensive substitute for the soft-paste porcelains being developed by contemporary English manufactories, initially in competition with Chinese export porcelains. The most notable producer of creamware was Josiah Wedgwood, who perfected the ware, beginning during his partnership with the master potter Thomas Whieldon. Around 1779, he was able to lighten the cream colour to a bluish white using cobalt in the lead overglaze.