Ceramic imprecision displayed during the discussion of
"whitewares" was disconcerting. I agree with Cara Blume that this issue
should be long since settled. Such meaningless terms as "brownware",
"greyware," "redware" and "whiteware" have no place in classification
systems.
 
Let's review elementary principles of ceramic classification.
 
There are three basic "wares" or bodies: porcelain, stoneware, and
earthenware. Earthenware is porous and sticks to the tongue. Porcelain is
translucent and nonporous. Stoneware is opaque and nonporous. This is the
first cut, which we must state when we begin to classify pots. Then we
must divide the pots within these three big groups.
 
First, there is porcelain, the queen of ceramics. Some European
attempts to copy Chinese porcelains are called "soft paste" because they are
softer. There is also a "hard" paste porcelain. Generally speaking, we divide
porcelain first between Oriental and European, and then between the various
European paste varieties. "Soft paste" is a well-defined technical term that
refers exclusively to certain types of porcelain; no other ceramics should be
called by this name, even if they happen to be soft.
 
Earthenwares are either refined or coarse. Refined earthenwares
include creamware, pearlware, as well as the refined nineteenth-century
white earthenware sometimes called by the misleading term "whiteware."
Some red earthenwares are also refined, as distinguished from coarse.
 
As Alasdair Brooks pointed out, one can often distinguish
"ironstones" by a grey cast. I look for grey lines in the crazing. Since
ironstone sometimes is very nearly stoneware, the distinction becomes
difficult, so the glaze color becomes significant in field attribution. As
Brooks points out so accurately, dividing lines among these types are fuzzy
at best.
 
Personally, terms like "redware" and "whiteware" set my teeth on
edge, because they are taxonomically imprecise. A "redware" could be
either a coarse or a refined red earthenware, or it could be a dry-bodied red
stoneware. By the same token, "whiteware" could be taken to mean white
saltglazed stoneware, Kohler toilets, or Meissen porcelain, in addition to
refined white earthenware.
 
I think we mean "refined white earthenware" when some of us say
"whiteware," so why don't we use the correct terminology, for a change?
 
After all, archaeologists claim to be Great Taxonomists of Culture,
the Universe, and Everything.
 
End of taxonomy lesson.