European Ceramics

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 2000The history of ceramics is extraordinarily diverse, ranging from crude clay utensils to highly decorative pieces of immense beauty and craftsmanship. Robin Hildyard draws on the Victoria & Albert Museum's extensive collection to trace the story of European ceramics, in its rich diversity from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day.Highlighting key developments, techniques, discoveries, and styles—from earthenware, stoneware, and tin glaze to the invention of porcelain and the impact of industrialization—the narrative is interspersed with thematic spreads that explore the techniques and astonishing capabilities of this most universal of materials. Events such as the Great Exhibition and its successors sought to resolve the conflict between mass production and good design, illustrated here by a wide range of pieces. Looking at the complicated twentieth-century relationship among designer, manufacturer, and artist, the book also explores the modernism of the Bauhaus style, the opposing influence of Art Deco, and the explosion of new design following the Second World War.Including works made as recently as 1998, and featuring specially commissioned photography supported by related engravings and pattern-books, European Ceramics is not only an authoritative and indispensable reference work for students and collectors but a wide-ranging and richly illustrated volume—over two hundred illustrations, the majority in color—for all decorative art lovers to treasure.