Dish

This dish was formed by rolling out a thin slab of clay and pressing it onto a convex mold incised with the equestrian cavalier design. When the clay was sufficiently dry, the edge was crimped with a cockle shell. A light slip was swirled on the inside of the dish. The incised lines of the convex mold resulted in raised relief lines of the cavalier on the face of the dish, which were filled with brown slip.

Slip is the term for a mixture of clay and water. Slip of a thin consistency can be painted on with a brush to add two-dimensional decoration, while a thick slip can be applied to add three-dimensional embellishment. These large dishes, called chargers, were decorated with multi-colored slips, covered with a transparent lead glaze and then fired. Slipware was either potted on a wheel or press molded by pressing clay into or onto a mold. Although many slipware pieces were functional, works such as those displayed here were designed to hang on the wall as decorative objects.