European Ceramics

The history of ceramics is wonderfully diverse, spanning crude clay utensils to highly decorative pieces of immense beauty and craftsmanship. This quintessential V&A book, now in paperback with a new cover, draws on the V&A's extensive collection to trace the story of European ceramics from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day. Key developments, techniques, discoveries and styles, from earthenware, stoneware, and tin glaze to the invention of porcelain and the impact of industrialization, are highlighted in this richly illustrated, essential volume.

Looking at the complicated 20th-century relationship between designer, manufacture and artist, the book also explores the modernism of the Bauhus style, the opposing influence of Art Deco, and the explosion of new design following World War II. Including works made as recently as 1998, and featuring specially commissioned photography supported by related engravings and pattern-books, Europeans Ceramics is an authoritative and indispensable reference.

Robin Hildyard is a former curator in the Ceramics & Glass Department at the V&A and a leading expert in English pottery and early English glass. He is also the author of English Pottery 1620-1840.