English shell-edged earthenware

Magazine Antiques, March, 1994 by Robert R. Hunter, Jr., George L. Miller

One of the most popular and long-lived styles ever produced by the English ceramics industry was the shell edge. To judge by documentary and archaeological evidence, it was made and exported in such large quantities between 1780 and 1860 that it appears to have been used in almost every American household during the early Federal period. However, as with many objects that were once commonplace, there has been little systematic research into the importance of shell-edged tablewares in the larger context of English ceramic history.(1)

Many collectors today mistakenly refer to these wares as feather-edge or more generically as Leeds ware. However, during the eighteenth century the Staffordshire potters and others in the ceramics trade routinely called them shell-edge. while in the nineteenth century the most commonly used term was simply edged. The eighteenth-century term feather-edge has only been documented as applying to a specific creamware pattern made popular by Josiah Wedgwood (see Pl. I). The shell edge appears in the Wedgwood factory's first pattern book,(2) in the Castleford Pottery pattern book printed in 1796,(3) and in the pattern book of the Leeds firm of Hartley, Greens and Company (1781--1820) printed between 1783 and 1814(4) (which is surely the origin of the erroneous term Leeds ware).

Shells were a prominent decorative element in antiquity as well as in the eighteenth-century Anglo-American world. In its use on English ceramic wares, the shell edge was inspired by mid-eighteenth-century rococo design elements on Continental porcelain and earthenware. The Sevres porcelain factory outside Paris in particular used a shell-edged device to frame enameled botanical motifs on porcelain. The shell edge appears on Bow porcelain as early as the 1750's, and on soft-paste porcelain from other English factories later in the century (see Pl. II). However, it should be noted that the shell edge on eighteenth-century porcelain, whether Continental or English, was a minor component of elaborate enameled decoration. By contrast, the molded shell edge was itself the principal decoration on English earthenware. It excelled at focusing the eye on the food, which contributed to its great popularity since the presentation of food is, after all, the basic function of tableware.

Josiah Wedgwood may have been one of the first Staffordshire potters to use the molded shell edge on refined earthenwares when he introduced his pattern of this name for uncolored creamware in the mid-1770's.(5) At that time it was only one of many successful rim styles produced at the factory (see Pl. I). Other Staffordshire potters quickly adapted the shell edge to the blue-tinted pearl wares of the 1780's. An extensive survey of back stamps on shell-edged wares has identified more than fifty British manufacturers representing all the major Staffordshire potters as well as potteries in Leeds, Castleford, Northumberland, Bristol, and Devonshire.(6) So pervasive was the shell edge that it was incorporated into the painted decoration on some eighteenth-century English delft (see Pl. III), and it appears in its molded form on late eighteenth-century Chinese export porcelain (see Pl. IX).

Accurate dating of shell-edged wares is possible by tracting the evolution of rim shapes. The earliest shape was a true reflection of rococo design--an asymmetrical, undulating scallop with impressed curved lines (see Pl. V, A). This style was in vogue between about 1775 and about 1800, and can be found until about 1810. Overglaze enamel was often used to highlight the rim, particularly on creamwares. Blue and green were the most popular colors, but brown, purple, red, and black are also found (see Pl. VI).

About 1800, influenced by neoclassical conventions, the scallops of the shell edge became even and symmetrical, incorporating straight or curved impressed lines (see Pl. V, B). Tablewares of this style, with blue or green shell edges, were made almost exclusively of pearl ware until well into the 1830's.

A related type of rim known as the embossed edge was introduced in the 1820's (see Pl. VII). Motifs include flowers, garlands, fish scales, wheat, grapes, and even feathers (perhaps accounting for the modern misuse of feather-edge). The embossed edge, colored mainly blue or green, appears chiefly on pearl wares produced into the 1830's.

By the 1840's the shell edge was being used on the heavy whitewares of the time. Probably to cut costs, the scalloped rim was eliminated in favor of impressed lines, almost always colored blue (see Pl. V, C). In the 1860's the impressed lines themselves disappeared and the shell edge was created with underglaze blue (see Pl. V, D). This style persisted into the 1890's. Then, in the early twentieth century, the shell edge came full circle with the limited revival of asymmetrical rococo shell edging.

The shell edge not only flourished as the sole form of decoration but he shell edge not only flourished as the sole form of decoration but also provided a suitable frame for other embellishments. Some of the earliest shell-edged wares in the rococo style were decorated with enameled flowers or elaborate genre or commemorative motifs (see Pl. X). The rococo shell edge sometimes incorporated molded leaves or swags (see Pl. XII). Made in both creamware and pearl ware, they almost always bear additional decoration in underglaze blue, overglaze black transfer printing, or even marbled slip of the kind associated with the banded creamware known as mochaware. By far the most common painted decorations on shell-edged wares in the rococo style are stylized chinoiserie motifs, particularly those broadly classified as house or pagoda motifs. They appeared initially on creamware, but ultimately more effectively on the blue-tinted pearl ware that mimicked Chinese procelain (see Pl. XII). This style of decoration persisted until after 1810, appearing on the evenly scalloped shell-edged wares that succeeded those in the rococo mode.