MINTON WARE

cream-coloured and blue-printed earthenware maiolica, bone china, and Parian porcelain produced at a factory founded in 1793 in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, Eng., by Thomas Minton, who popularized the famous so-called Willow pattern. In the 1820s he started production of bone china; this early Minton is regarded as comparable to French Svres, by which it was greatly influenced. Minton's was the only English china factory of the 19th century to employ a Svres technical process called pte-sur-pte (q.v.; painted decoration in white clay slip instead of enamel before glazing). Minton also produced Parian figures. The Minton factory was the most popular supply source in the 19th century of dinnerware made to order for embassies and for heads of state.