Modern Pottery
In sharp contrast to the archaeological usage, in which the term terra sigillata refers to a whole class of pottery, in contemporary ceramic art, 'terra sigillata' describes only a watery refined slip used to facilitate the burnishing of raw clay surfaces and used to promote carbon smoke effects, in both primitive low temperature firing techniques and unglazed alternative western-style Raku firing techniques. Terra sigillata is also used as a brushable decorative colourant medium in higher temperature glazed ceramic techniques.
In 1906 the German potter Karl Fischer re-invented the method of making terra sigillata of Roman quality and obtained patent protection for this procedure at the Kaiserliche Patentamt in Berlin.
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Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or pottery:
“Insurance. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of inhabitants.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)