Creamware
Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine,<ref>Tamara Préaud, curator. 1997.The Sėvres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry (Bard Graduate Center, New York), Glossary, s.v. "Creamware: "In France it was known as faïence fine.</ref> in the Netherlands as Engels porselein, and in Italy as terraglia inglese. 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 so ideal for domestic ware that it supplanted white salt-glaze wares by about 1780. It was popular until the 1840s. Variations of creamware were known as "tortoiseshell ware" or "Whieldon ware" were developed by the master potter Thomas Whieldon with coloured stains under the glaze. It served as an inexpensive substitute for the soft-paste porcelains being developed by contemporary English manufactories, initially in competition with Chinese export porcelains. It was often made in the same fashionable and refined styles as porcelain. The most notable producer of creamware was Josiah Wedgwood, who perfected the ware, beginning during his partnership with Thomas Whieldon. Wedgwood supplied his creamware to Queen Charlotte and Catherine the Great (in the famous Frog Service) and used the trade name Queen's ware. Later, around 1779, he was able to lighten the cream colour to a bluish white by using cobalt in the lead overglaze. Wedgwood sold this more desirable product under the name pearl ware. The Leeds Pottery (producing "Leedsware") was another very successful producer. Wedgwood and his English competitors sold creamware throughout Europe, sparking local industries, that largely replaced tin-glazed faience. and to the United States. One contemporary writer and friend of Wedgwood claimed it was ubiquitous. This led to local industries developing throughout Europe to meet demand. There was also a strong export market to the United States. The success of creamware had killed the demand for tin-glazed earthenware and pewter vessels alike and the spread of cheap, good-quality, mass-produced creamware to Europe had a similar impact on Continental tin-glazed faience factories. By the 1780s Josiah Wedgwood was exporting as much as 80% of his output to Europe. Materials and production Creamware is made from white clays from Dorset and Devonshire combined with an amount of calcined flint. This body is the same as that used for salt-glazed stoneware, but it is fired to a lower temperature (around 800 °C as opposed to 1,100 to 1,200 °C) and glazed with lead to form a cream-coloured earthenware. The white clays ensured a fine body and the addition of flint improved its resistance to thermal shock during firing, whilst flint added to the glaze helped prevent crazing. Development Creamware was first produced some time before 1740. Originally lead powder or galena, mixed with a certain amount of ground calcined flint, was dusted on the ware, which was then given its one and only firing. This early method was unsatisfactory because lead