This book broadens the discussion of pottery and china in the Victorian era by situating them in the national, imperial, design reform, and domestic debates between 1840 and 1890. Largely ignored in recent scholarship, Ceramics in the Victorian Era: Meanings and Metaphors in Painting and Literature argues that the signification of a pot, a jug, or a tableware pattern can be more fully discerned in written and painted representations. Across five case studies, the book explores a rhetoric and set of conventions that developed within the representation of ceramics, emerging in the late-18th century, and continuing in the Victorian period. Each case study begins with a textual passage exemplifying the outlined theme and closes with an object analysis to demonstrate how the fusing of text, image, and object are critical to attaining the period eye in order to better understand the metaphorical meanings of ceramics. Essential reading not only for ceramics scholars, but also those of material culture, the book mines the rich and diverse archive of Victorian painting and literature, from the avant-garde to the sentimental, from the well-known to the more obscure, to shed light on the at once complex and simple implications of ceramics’ agencies at this time.

This publication reflects upon the celebrated collection at the internationally renowned Gardiner Museum, Toronto, which has grown to become one of the world's great speciality museums with its devotion to the ceramic arts. Featuring more than 100 images, the book focuses upon 30 objects that reflect the temporal and geographical breadth of the Museum's collection, as well as the universality of the medium it celebrates. An international body of scholars and curators share their insights and expertise within the book's essays telling the story of ceramic production throughout history and with reference to a vast array of approaches to the medium. Featuring works by such illustrious names as Marc Chagall, Betty Woodman, Marilyn Levine, Wedgwood and Delft, this book provides a fascinating insight into one of the greatest collections in the world of ceramics.