Ceramics - Collecting

The word ceramics is a broad term, generally construed to include earthenware, porcelain, and similar materials that are products of the potter's kiln. Crude pottery was shaped by prehistoric man, who used the sun's rays to dry its softness into a hard form. Later, he learned to bake the clay at higher temperatures to make it yet more durable and give it a degree of permanency.

Still later, the Chinese and the Egyptians more or less simultaneously learned to glaze their pottery, giving it added strength and beauty. History-haunted pieces of early Chinese and Egyptian manufacture are today beyond the reach of the average collector, but they can be seen displayed in the art museums. It was not until the latter part of the seventeenth century that pottery-making became widespread in Europe, although the Italians were producing excellent majolica pieces during the fifteenth century.

Pottery costs you whatever you want to pay for it. Prices range from cheap to prohibitively expensive. The small china doll you may have picked up at Woolworth's, for instance, is an inexpensive ceramic, but a ceramic nevertheless. For a ceramic is any product of baked clay—porcelain, earthenware, gres (similar to porcelain, but not translucent), and majolica, which is also spelled maiolica. Early European ceramics are sufficiently scarce to be too costly for the average person. However, Europe is producing exquisite ceramics today, both decorative and useful. While not cheap in the dime-store sense, the cost of the smaller items is well within the collector's reach.

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