Almost everything you have been told about pottery is wrong when it comes to this one. Jaipur blue pottery contains no clay. None. The body is quartz powder, powdered glass, borax, gum and a little fuller's earth, mixed with water into a dough that behaves nothing like clay and forgives nothing.
Our Heritage Blue Ceramic Quarter Plates draw on that visual tradition, and the pattern language is worth understanding properly, because the craft behind it is one of the most technically odd things India makes.
Where blue pottery came from
The technique is Turko-Persian in origin. It travelled along the same routes that brought Persian tilework into Mughal architecture, and reached Jaipur in the early nineteenth century under Sawai Ram Singh II, who is generally credited with bringing artisans to the city and establishing the craft there. The name comes from the cobalt blue that dominates the palette, though a copper-oxide green and a soft brown were later added to it.
By the mid-twentieth century the craft had very nearly died out. Its revival is usually traced to the painter Kripal Singh Shekhawat, working with patrons in Jaipur, and it survives today in a relatively small number of family workshops.
How it is made
1. The dough. Quartz stone powder, powdered glass, borax, gum and multani mitti are combined with water. There is no plasticity in this mixture, which means it cannot be thrown on a wheel the way clay can.
2. Flattening. The dough is beaten into a pancake roughly four to five millimetres thick using a wooden tool called a thepai.
3. Moulding. The sheet is pressed into a mould dusted with a mix of fine bajri and raakh, the ash of burnt wood, which stops it sticking. It sits until it holds its shape.
4. Smoothing. The ash is knocked off and the piece is sanded by hand until the surface is even.
5. Coating. A slip of quartz powder, powdered glass and maida flour is applied by hand, giving the white ground that the blue will sit against.
6. Painting. The outline is drawn in cobalt oxide mixed with gum, then filled in. The brushes are traditionally made from squirrel hair, fine enough to hold a line a fraction of a millimetre wide.
7. Glazing and firing. A glaze of glass, borax, zinc oxide and boric acid goes on, and the piece is fired once at a comparatively low temperature, usually somewhere between 800 and 850 degrees Celsius.
Why it breaks so easily
This is the trade-off at the heart of the craft, and it is worth stating plainly before you buy any.
Ordinary stoneware is fired hot enough for the clay body to vitrify, fusing into something dense and strong. Blue pottery is fired low, and it has no clay to vitrify in the first place. What holds a piece together is essentially fused glass and quartz. That gives it its luminous, slightly translucent surface and its extraordinary colour. It also makes it brittle, porous at the edges, and intolerant of sudden temperature change.
A dropped blue pottery bowl does not chip. It shatters.
Telling blue pottery from blue ceramic
A great deal of blue-and-white tableware is sold under the blue pottery name. Most of it is ordinary glazed stoneware painted in a similar palette, which is a perfectly good object but a different one.
Weight. True blue pottery is noticeably lighter than stoneware of the same size. Quartz and glass are less dense than fired clay.
Sound. Tap it gently. Blue pottery gives a dull, short note. Stoneware rings.
The unglazed base. Look underneath. Blue pottery shows a chalky, granular white body. Stoneware shows a denser, often greyish or buff clay ring. This is the fastest and most reliable check of the five.
Line quality. Hand-painted cobalt has variable line weight and small hesitations where the brush lifted. Transfer-printed decoration is uniform and often shows a faint dot screen under magnification.
Translucence at the rim. Held to strong light, thin sections of blue pottery glow faintly. Stoneware is opaque.
How to care for it
- Hand wash only, in lukewarm water with a soft cloth. Dishwashers combine heat, pressure and detergent, all three of which attack a low-fired glaze.
- Never soak. The body is porous and prolonged water contact works into it.
- Avoid thermal shock above everything else. Do not pour boiling liquid into a cold piece, and never move one from refrigerator to hot water.
- Keep it out of the microwave and the oven entirely.
- Skip abrasive scourers and harsh cleaners. The glaze scratches, and once scratched it dulls.
- Keep it out of long direct sunlight, which fades the cobalt over years.
- Store with cloth or felt between stacked pieces, and do not stack heavily. Weight on a low-fired rim causes hairline cracks.
Using it well at home
Blue pottery is best treated as serveware and decoration rather than everyday plates that go through a daily wash cycle. Quarter plates, dessert plates, small bowls, trays and platters all play to its strengths: brought out for guests, admired, hand washed, put away.
Visually it wants restraint around it. Cobalt is a loud colour, and a table of nothing but blue pottery reads as a display cabinet. Set two or three blue pieces against plain white or off-white, unfinished wood, brass or marble and let the pattern be the only decorated thing. Our notes on styling an Indian dining table and setting a chai table both work on the same principle.
If you want the look with everyday durability, hand-painted stoneware is the sensible choice. That is exactly what our Heritage Blue Quarter Plates are: hand-painted in a blue pottery visual language, but built to survive an ordinary Indian kitchen. There is more on choosing between the two in our guide to hand-painted ceramic tableware.
Frequently asked questions
Is Jaipur blue pottery food safe?
Traditional blue pottery is glazed and generally used for serving, but because it is low-fired and porous it is best kept to dry or short-contact foods and hand washed. For daily use with hot, oily or acidic food, high-fired stoneware is the safer choice.
Why does blue pottery contain no clay?
The technique arrived from Persia as a quartz-and-glass frit body rather than a clay one. That composition is what produces its distinctive translucent white ground and brilliant cobalt.
Can blue pottery go in the dishwasher or microwave?
No to both. The glaze and the low-fired body cannot tolerate the heat, pressure or thermal shock involved.
How do I know if blue pottery is authentic?
Check the unglazed base for a chalky white granular body, feel for lightness, tap for a dull note rather than a ring, and look for variation in the painted line.
Is blue pottery from Jaipur or Persia?
The technique is Turko-Persian in origin and came to India through Mughal channels. Jaipur adopted it in the nineteenth century and has been its Indian home ever since.
Related reading
- A guide to hand-painted ceramic tableware
- How to style an Indian dining table
- How to care for handcrafted home pieces
- How to set a chai table for Indian guests
See the hand-painted cobalt on our Heritage Blue Quarter Plates, or browse the full home collection.