Brown Stoneware Container
Age: 19th C.
Material: Brown Glaze, Stoneware
Maker: Unknown
Description: This container is glazed brown and largely featureless.
Size: H. 9.0x W. 7.5x D. 7.5"
Weight: 5lbs 3.3oz
Provenance: Ulster County Estate
Condition: There is some minor rubbing resulting in the wear of the glaze along the sides and base of this container.
History: Stoneware was invented by the Indus Valley Civilization by at least 1900 BCE, using a process that started with a fine terra cotta and made stoneware as the final product in a process lost to this day. An industry of a nearly industrial-scale mass-production of stoneware bangles flourished in the Indus Valley in the form of remarkably large and sophisticated factories throughout the civilization's Mature Period (2600-1900 BCE); unfortunately, like so many of their achievements, the technology for manufacturing stoneware was lost with the fall of the Indus Valley Civilization.Outside of the Indus Civilization, the earliest example of stoneware is found in China, naturally as an extension of higher temperatures achieved from early development of reduction firing. From the various definitions of high-fired ceramics, it is agreed that the earliest stoneware is encountered in the late Shang dynasty in China, with large quantities in production by the Han dynasty.