Page 20

 
DELFTWARE INTRODUCTION 
       Plates of pewter are no go, 
       Because you have to scour them so, 
       But a plate of porcelain, 
       When tis washed is white and clean 
       Therefor set on th' table free 
       A plate that finely painted be 
C    onsecutive lines from this rhyme appear in Dutch on sets of six tin-glazed
earthen- 
ware plates made in Holland during the third quarter of the seventeenth century.
The use 
of the term porceleijn (or porcelain) on these pieces and in early documents
reflects some 
Western potters' claims that their ceramics duplicated the fineness and translucency
of the 
Chinese and Japanese hard-paste porcelain then being imported into Europe.'
In reality, 
these Western imitations were made in opaque, somewhat porous reddish to
pale buff-col- 
ored, low-fired earthenware, which was coated with lead glaze that had been
opacified and 
1. See Scholten, van Drecht, pp. 260-261, no. 224, for a 
plate from such a service. See Archer, V&A, pp. 3, 29 33, 
flr Chinese porcelain as a delfiware inspiration. 
20 The Longridge Collection