History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 2 (of 2) by Walters et al.
2. TECHNICAL PROCESSES
946 words | Chapter 158
Roman pottery, regarded from its purely technical aspect, is in some
ways better known to us than Greek, chiefly owing to the extensive
discoveries of kilns, furnaces, and potters’ apparatus, such as moulds
and tools, in various parts of Western Europe. On the other hand, its
classification is a much more difficult matter, although it has for so
long been the subject of study, for reasons which will subsequently
appear. This is perhaps partly due to the overwhelming interest which
the discoveries of recent years have evoked in the study of Greek
vases; and partly, of course, to the artistic superiority and more
varied interest of the latter; but the mass of material now collected
in the Museums of Italy and Central Europe is gradually impelling
Continental scholars to bring to bear on Roman pottery the scientific
methods now universally pursued in other directions. Of their work we
shall speak more in detail in another chapter; for the present we must
confine ourselves to the technical aspect of the subject.
The Romans, who used metal vases to a far greater extent than the
Greeks—at least under the late Republic and Empire—did not hold the art
of pottery in very high estimation, and their vases, like their tiles
and lamps, were produced by slaves and freedmen, whereas at Athens the
potter usually held at least the position of a resident alien. These
were content to produce useful, but not as a rule fine or beautiful,
vases, for the most part only adapted to the necessities of life. There
was, so far as we know, no manufacture of vases set apart for religious
purposes, either for funerary use or as votive offerings, and for the
adornment of the house metal had the preference. It is not, therefore,
surprising that we should find them making use of a less fine and
compact paste for the greater proportion of their vases. With the
exception of the fine red wares with reliefs, which are now generally
known to archaeologists as _terra sigillata_,[3082] and which answered
in public estimation to our porcelain, they made only common
earthenware, and this was generally left unglazed.
All kinds of clays are used, varying with the different regions in
which the pottery was made, and ranging in hue from black to grey,
drab, yellow, brown, and red. In quality, too, the clay varies to a
considerable extent, some being of a coarse, pebbly character. The red
clay of the Allier district in France, where most of the Gaulish
pottery was manufactured, is of a ferruginous nature; its natural
colour is modified by baking, though it never becomes white.[3083] The
pottery of St. Rémy-en-Rollat in that neighbourhood is made of the same
white clay as the terracotta figures (p. 382).[3084] In Italy, as a
rule, careful attention seems to have been paid to the preparing and
mixing of the clay, and in the glazed red wares it is uniformly good.
In fact, the remarkable similarity in technique and appearance of this
ware throughout the Roman Empire has led to the view that there can
only have been one centre from which it was exported. Against this,
however, must be urged the undeniably provincial and almost barbarous
character of the decoration on much of the pottery found in Central and
Northern Europe; and therefore, without denying that exportation went
on, as it undoubtedly did, we should prefer to suppose that this red
glaze was produced in some special artificial manner, such as by using
red ochre or iron oxide (see below), the knowledge of which became
common property. As Semper said forty years ago[3085]: “Not only did
barbarians, Gauls, Britons, and Germans, learn to know and use Roman
technique, but also Egypt, Asia, and the Greeks, already immortalised
by their own pottery, dropped their local processes, and voluntarily
adopted Roman forms and technique.” Clay and glaze, form and technical
method, are in all parts the same; it is only the decoration that
varies and reflects the spirit and taste of the locality.
Formerly it was thought that the red glaze was obtained in the baking,
after careful polishing of the surface, and that special means were
adopted to this end. In the kilns of Castor (see below) Artis thought
that he detected contrivances for this purpose; but it is now generally
agreed that the glaze is artificial, not natural. In ordinary wares and
in the lamps a red glaze is produced by a mere polishing of the
surface, and this varies in tone and lustre with the proportion of
oxide of iron in the paste, and the degree of heat employed in the
baking. But in the _terra sigillata_ the red glaze reaches a high and
uniform state of perfection. This seems to have been produced by a kind
of varnish, the elements of which are not absolutely certain; but it
would appear that the substance added to produce the effect was of an
essentially alkaloid nature. This has been deduced by Dragendorff[3086]
from a series of analyses made from fragments of different wares, both
without and with the glaze; in the latter case the alkaloid
constituents show a marked increase in quantity, whereas the proportion
of the iron oxide and other elements remain constant. These
investigations were made by Dr. Lilienthal, of Dorpat, on five
fragments: (1) from a vase of the Republican period found at Corneto;
(2) from a bowl of fine _terra sigillata_ of the first century after
Christ; (3) from a deep cup of the same style; (4) from late provincial
ware of the second or third century; (5) from a degenerate fabric with
rough clay and inferior glaze, the results being as follows:—
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