On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the stoneware baking sheet across from the article title. Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. Stoneware is not recognised as a category in traditional East Asian terminology, and much Asian stoneware, such as Chinese Ding ware for example, is counted as porcelain by local definitions.

Terms such as “porcellaneous” or “near-porcelain” may be used in such cases. Stoneware, which, though dense, impermeable and hard enough to resist scratching by a steel point, differs from porcelain because it is more opaque, and normally only partially vitrified. It may be vitreous or semi-vitreous. Traditional stoneware: a dense and inexpensive body.

It is opaque, can be of any colour and breaks with a conchoidal or stony fracture. Traditionally made of fine-grained secondary, plastic clays which can be used to shape very large pieces. Fine stoneware: made from more carefully selected, prepared, and blended raw materials. It is used to produce tableware and art ware. Chemical stoneware: used in the chemical industry, and when resistance to chemical attack is needed.

Purer raw materials are used than for other stoneware bodies. Thermal shock resistant stoneware: has additions of certain materials to enhance the thermal shock resistance of the fired body. Electrical stoneware: historically used for electrical insulators, although it has been replaced by electrical porcelain. American stoneware jug with Albany slip glaze on the top, c.

The key raw material in stoneware is either naturally occurring stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. The mineral kaolinite is present but disordered, and although mica and quartz are present their particle size is very small. A Staffordshire pottery stoneware plate from the 1850s with white glaze and transfer printed design. Visually this hardly differs from earthenware or porcelain equivalents. Stoneware can be once-fired or twice-fired.

C depending on the flux content. Another type, Flintless Stoneware, has also been identified. Special Regulations of 1950 as: “Stoneware, the body of which consists of natural clay to which no flint or quartz or other form of free silica has been added. Traditional East Asian thinking classifies pottery only into “low-fired” and “high-fired” wares, equating to earthenware and porcelain, without the intermediate European class of stoneware, and the many local types of stoneware were mostly classed as porcelain, though often not white and translucent. Methods of forming stoneware bodies include moulding, slipcasting and wheel throwing.

Underglaze and overglaze decoration of many types can be used. Chinese Yixing teapot, Qing dynasty, c. In both medieval China and Japan, stoneware was very common, and several types became admired for their simple forms and subtle glaze effects. In China, fine pottery was very largely porcelain by the Ming dynasty, and stoneware mostly restricted to utilitarian wares, and those for the poor. But in Japan many traditional types of stoneware, for example Oribe ware and Shino ware, were preferred for chawan cups for the Japanese tea ceremony, and have been valued up to the present for this and other uses.

China, the border with porcelain is rather fuzzy. In contrast to Asia, stoneware could be produced in Europe only from the late Middle Ages, as European kilns were less efficient, and the right sorts of clay less common. Some ancient Roman pottery had approached being stoneware, but not as a consistent type of ware. England was to become the most inventive and important European maker of fancy stoneware in the 18th and 19th centuries, but there is no clear evidence for native production before the mid-17th century. German imports were common from the early 16th century at least, and known as “Cologne ware” after the centre of shipping it, rather than making it. Other manufacturers produced their own types, including various ironstone china types, some in fact classified as earthenware.

Many modern commercial glazed tablewares and kitchenwares use stoneware rather than porcelain or bone china, and it is common in craft and studio pottery. The popular Japanese-inspired raku ware is normally stoneware. Bartmann jug: A decorated stoneware form that was manufactured in Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the Cologne region of Germany. Redware: Unglazed stoneware with a terracotta red, initially imitating Chinese Yixing ware teapots. The Dutch-German Elers brothers brought it to Staffordshire in the 1690s.