Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Vol 1. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The early post-medieval period in England was a time of economic growth and expansion. During the 16th and 17th centuries the period dominated by the Tudor and Stuart dynasties the country’s ceramic industries underwent a great transformation characterised by technological advance and the adoption of new methods of manufacture. Improved communications acceler- ated the exchange of ideas and influences between the major potteries both in this country and on the Continent. The latest fashions were quickly assimilated new forms proliferated and new patterns of marketing emerged to meet the grow- ing demand for pottery from all sections of society. Many small-scale or non-specialist centres were unable to compete in the march towards indus- trialisation and disappeared. Other industries correspondingly expanded. The importance of London cannot be overestimated as a consumer centre and as a market for pottery of all kinds the mundane and the esoteric both from local centres of production and from a diversity of sources extending to the Far East. The Museum of London houses a considerable collection of pottery from the Tudor and Stuart periods built up over the last 150 to 200 years and numbering several hundred individual pots in a state of total or near completeness. One of the main drawbacks of this collection for the archaeologist is the very fact that it is a ‘collec- tion’. The principles of modern scientific excava tion and stratigraphical association played little or no part in the discovery of the bulk of the pottery acquired by the Museum. The survival of any one vessel was largely dictated by the care and obser- vation of workmen or excavators the commercial appeal to antique dealers who were generally less interested in the mundane accessories of every- day life than in the aesthetically appealing and the personal whim and taste of the collector. (LL)