Using documents, diaries, novels and conventions of the time, this volume describes the social uses and cultural meanings of fine ceramics in the 18th century: porcelain, blue and white earthenware and creamwares. Rather than placing the objects themselves at the centre, this approach focuses on the people who used, criticized, sold and stole them, and investigates the impact these products had on the practical and imaginative lives of the 18th-century middle class. These "middling sort" of people were now able to provide refined receptacles to support the social rituals of "polite" society and these artefacts were invested with values and emblematic meanings alongside their practical or ornamental functions. Fine ceramics reinforced the social practices which represented a desire for greater refinement and comfort and were significant in framing and maintaining civilized patterns of behaviour.
- ISBN10 0719044642
- ISBN13 9780719044649
- Publish Date 11 March 1999
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 October 2005
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Manchester University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English