Pottery that has been treated with semiliquid clay, or slip.
The technique was originally used to cover defects in body colour, but later evolved into decorative techniques such as sgraffito, carving, painting, trailing, marbling, and inlay. In sgraffito a pattern is incised through the slip to reveal the different body colour underneath. The Staffordshire potters in 17th-century Britain were famous for the decorative figures, flowers, and patterns they created by using dotted and trailed slip.
English slipware dish by Thomas Toft of northern Staffordshire, c. 1680; in the Victoria and Albert ...
By courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London