Lotus Ware is a type of

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

produced from approximately 1892 to 1896 at the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles (KT&K) pottery of

East Liverpool East Liverpool is a city in southeastern Columbiana County, Ohio, Columbiana County, Ohio, United States. The population was 9,958 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It lies along the Ohio River within the Weirton–Steubenville metro ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, United States. It is thought that the name may have originated from a comment made by the owner, Isaac Knowles, asserting that the glaze of the pieces resembled the glossy sheen of lotus blossom petals. These ceramics were ranked at the top at the

1893 World's Fair The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, where they won every prize for fine porcelain.Catherine S. Vodrey, "Lotus Ware"
, The Museum of Ceramics, 2013, accessed 12 June 2014 It is generally considered to be the finest porcelain ever produced in the United States.

Knowles, Taylor & Knowles

Isaac Knowles started his pottery in East Liverpool in 1854. He produced

Rockingham pottery The Rockingham Pottery was a 19th-century manufacturer of porcelain of international repute, supplying fine wares and ornamental pieces to royalty and the aristocracy in Britain and overseas, as well as manufacturing porcelain and earthenwar ...

, yellow Queen's ware, and ceramic canning jars. The operation expanded and in 1870, John Taylor and Homer S. Knowles joined the company. By 1880, KT&K was the largest pottery maker in East Liverpool."Lotus Ware Ewer"
Ohio Pix, Ohio Historical Society, accessed 12 June 2014 By the 1880s, it was producing translucent china. By 1890, the company was the largest manufacturer of white granite plain and decorative ware in the nation. In the late 19th century, factories in the city produced nearly half of all American domestic and hotel ware. The KT&K management was forward-thinking in establishing an in-house design-and-decoration shop instead of using outside designers. KT&K had, by 1888, purchased another pottery and constructed another plant with eight kilns. The company also constructed a plant dedicated exclusively to the production of

bone china Bone china is a type of ceramic that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phospha ...

. In the United States, bone china had previously been made only in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.Belleek pottery in

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of 1,691 km2 (653 sq mi) and has a population of 61,805 ...

, northern Ireland. Owner Isaac Knowles wanted to manufacture beautiful art porcelain. Joshua Poole's training as a ceramic engineer was a considerable aid to Knowles' search for the ideal blend of beauty and strength. Poole was in charge of formulating the clay bodies. The other man responsible for Lotus Ware was Heinrich Schmidt, a German immigrant. He had experience as a decorator, or "fancy worker" in late 19th-century pottery slang, having worked at the renowned Meissen factory in Germany. At KT&K he was responsible for preparing the Lotus Ware

slip Slip or SLIP may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Slip (fish), also known as Black Sole * Slip (horticulture), a small cutting of a plant as a specimen or for grafting * Muscle slip, a branching of a muscle, in anatomy Computing and ...

. By committing the slip recipe to memory and refusing to keep a written version, Schmidt kept its formulation secret. His goal was that KT&K sell only perfect Lotus Ware. This product was first publicly introduced and exhibited at the

1893 World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

in Chicago, where it swept the competition.

Stylistic influences

The idealized depiction of the natural world common to the then-fashionable Art Nouveau style was a significant influence: the twining tendrils, leaves, blossoms, shells and coral branches were formed and applied mainly by hand, but occasionally the difficult pâté-sur-pâté ("paste upon paste") technique was employed.
Moorish and Persian influences were also evident, including ornate arched shapes, stylized swirls, and an excess of minute detail such as netting, fish-scale patterning, and tiny enamel-like dots, which appear like inset jewels on the ware's surface.

Technique

Schmidt used a technique called tube-lining, in which thick slip was applied via what was essentially like a large, sturdy

pastry bag A pastry bag (or piping bag in the Commonwealth) is an often cone- or triangular-shaped bag made from cloth, paper, plastic, or the intestinal lining of a lamb, that is squeezed by hand to ''pipe'' semi-solid foods by pressing them through a na ...

. He then constructed

plaster of Paris Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...

molds on which the designs were worked out and allowed to dry. These were gently removed from the molds and attached to the main body of the ware with fresh slip. After that further painted decoration, glazing and firing took place. Fundamental Lotus Ware forms were produced only in three colors: pure white,

celadon ''Celadon'' () is a term for pottery denoting both wares glazed in the jade green celadon color, also known as greenware or "green ware" (the term specialists now tend to use), and a type of transparent glaze, often with small cracks, that wa ...

and a deep shade of olive green, which was extremely popular in Europe in the late 19th century. Sometimes additional decoration in only a few other colors, especially a saturated shade of lavender, was used, but all other color was added only in the form of hand-painted decoration and (very rarely) decals. Lotus Ware forms all bore classical names such as Syrian, Thebian, Lanconian and Grecian. This was due to the fact that the company intended to promote an image of classic, high-quality ware.

Financial losses and the end of Lotus Ware

Because of the refinements of the process and decorative elements, the production losses of Lotus Ware were very high, estimated to be as high as 90%. Despite the heavy financial losses incurred by its high manufacturing losses, KT&K continued to produce Lotus Ware until approximately 1896. The company continued to flourish until the 1920s, but started to decline and eventually closed for good in 1931. An estimated 5,000 pieces of Lotus Ware survive. East Liverpool's Museum of Ceramics has the largest public display of Lotus Ware in the world.

Legacy

An Ohio state historic marker was installed in East Liverpool to commemorate the site of KT&K.Ohio Historical Society
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References

External links

{{commonscat, Lotus Ware
Catherine S. Vodrey, "Lotus Ware"
The Museum of Ceramics Porcelain of the United States Ceramics manufacturers of the United States American art pottery East Liverpool, Ohio Art Nouveau