Stonewares are made with fine, dense clays that can be fired at high temperatures resulting in a partially vitrified, non-porous stone-like ware.[i] Sedimentary clays, like ball clay are often used, which are low in iron. Kiln temperatures range between 1200 and 1350 degrees Celsius (2192 and 2462 degrees Fahrenheit). The higher temperatures during firing cause the clay particles to become molten and fully bond with one another and become semi-vitreous to vitreous. Once fired the paste is opaque and often gray or light brown.[ii] European potters in the Rhineland begin making stoneware vessels sometime between the 12th and 13th centuries. During the 15th century the Rhine potters have a flourishing salt glazed stoneware industry that was traded throughout Europe and the colonies.[iii]

---

[i] K.J. Barton, Pottery in England from 3500BC-AD 1730 (A.S. Barnes and Company, South Brunswick, UK, 1975), 132.

[ii] Cinda K. Baldwin, Great & Noble Jar: Traditional Stoneware of South Carolina (The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 2014), 11; Prudence M. Rice, Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1987), 5-6, 82.

[iii] Howard Coutts, The Art of Ceramics: European Ceramic Design 1500-1830 (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2001), 50-52; Glenn C. Nelson, Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook (University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN, 1971), 33.