Contrast creamware, which is so richly recorded in contemporary documents, with what collectors, curators, and archaeologists have labeled pearlware. Pearlware, on the other hand, has become a pigment of our imagination. Its development was a major event that had a significant impact on world markets and led to a major expansion of the Staffordshire pottery industry. It was elevated to the point where it was able to compete with porcelain for status, and it apparently took market share from the English porcelain industry. Creamware put Staffordshire on the map and greatly increased foreign trade for English ceramics. Numerous other potters took up the production of the perfected creamware, as can be seen from the papers in this volume. Social emulation helped create a demand for creamware, which in its undecorated state was within reach of a wide spectrum of economic classes. Josiah WedgwoodвЂ™s improvements of the ware, along with the brilliant marketing of it by Wedgwood and Bentley, took this earthenware to new heights in social status that placed it on the tables of the likes of Queen Charlotte and Catherine the Great. It has gone under such names as cream colour, creamware, QueenвЂ™s ware, and CC ware. The former has an extensive lineage that is very well documented in pottersвЂ™ correspondence, price lists, account books, and invoices that date from its introduction as вЂњcream colourвЂќ on through the nineteenth century. Creamware and pearlware are very different animals. What is missing from this collection of papers is any attempt to provide an overview of the role that creamware and pearlware played in the development of the English ceramic industry. The photography of the wares is excellent, and the volume will make an excellent contribution to anyoneвЂ™s library on these wares. Several of the authors make good use of waster sherds from these outlying areas, as well as marked and inscribed pieces and historical documents, to make their case. These papers are a meaningful contribution to a broader understanding of potteries outside Staffordshire that made creamware and pearlware. Creamware and pearlware were not reexamined rather, new information was added, mostly on areas outside Staffordshire that produced these wares.

The title for this collection of papers from the English Ceramic Circle is a bit of a misnomer. Beckenham, Kent, Eng.: English Ceramic Circle, 2007. Papers presented at an English Ceramic Circle Colloquium, Victoria and Albert Museum, June 4вЂ“5, 2005.

вЂFilled with a bouquet, a creamware pitcher injects life and warmth without detouring off the clean, white path.Tom Walford and Roger Massey, eds.

вЂSlide the turkey to one end of this gorgeous creamware platter, then fill the other with bright lemons and heady lavender.вЂ™.

вЂNo one I know has streams of sunshine constantly flooding their kitchen through leaded windows, alighting on creamware jugs filled with marjoram and chervil.вЂ™.

вЂIt meant participation in an expanding repertoire of domestic rituals made possible by creamware teacups and saucers, decanters, wine glasses, pickle plates, and forks of all sorts.вЂ™.

вЂIn this room New England Chippendale chairs surround a William and Mary gateleg table set with English creamware plates made between 17 and Prattware dishes and a tea set of about 1800.вЂ™.

вЂAware that вЂa name has a wonderful effectвЂ™, he presented his newly improved creamware to Queen Charlotte and obtained her permission to call it Queen's Ware, multiplying his sales in Britain and Europe.вЂ™.

вЂTwo creamware Whieldon models copied from the same print are known - but nothing in porcelain has previously surfaced.вЂ™.

вЂOn this side of the Atlantic, the colonists were using large quantities of delftware imported from England until creamware became popular in the 1760s.

вЂEnglish creamware, or so-called Queen's China, punch bowls were imported in large numbers during the latter half of the eighteenth century.вЂ™.

вЂIn contrast to tortoiseshell and color-glazed wares, the pale surface of creamware proved a perfect canvas for overglaze pictorial decoration, particularly on coffee- and teawares and hollowware forms such as tankards and jugs.вЂ™.вЂIn 1787 the count hired Pierre Cloostermans, a Flemish ceramic painter living in Paris, to continue making creamware and to develop a formula for hard-paste porcelain.вЂ™.

What is creamware