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Identifying creamware and pearlware

The refined earthenwares that filled every table after 1760.

Creamware is a pale cream-toned refined earthenware with a thin brilliant glaze, dominating tables from the 1760s. Pearlware follows from the 1780s: cobalt tinted the glaze to whiten it, and blue pools visibly in crevices around footrings and handle joins — the classic identification check.

Decoration dates tightly: hand-painted chinoiserie and shell-edge rims (blue or green) on pearlware; transfer printing from the 1780s onward, with willow-pattern blue everywhere by the 19th century. Whiteware (no blue pooling, harder) gradually replaces both.

Tilt the sherd under light to check for blue pooling at crevices. Record body colour, glaze tint, decoration technique (painted versus printed — printing shows dot-and-line screen texture), and edge moulding. These humble sherds date farmyard scatters better than almost anything else in the plough soil.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on pottery

Identifying pottery and ceramics — Fabric, surface, and how it was formed.

Identifying terracotta figurines — Mould lines and vent holes.

Identifying amphorae and transport pottery — Shape equals cargo.

Identifying tiles and brick — Fabric, stamp, and format.

Identifying Roman samian ware — Glossy red tableware with moulded scenes and potters' stamps.

Identifying Roman coarse wares — The kitchen pottery of the empire — greywares, mortaria, and flagons.

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