Blue Art Pottery – The famous Craft in India
Blue Pottery is widely recognized as a traditional craft of Jaipur, though it is Turko-Persian in origin. The name ‘blue pottery’ comes from the eye-catching blue dye used to color the pottery.
Jaipur blue Art pottery, made out of a similar frit material to Egyptian faience, is glazed and low-fired. No clay is used: the ‘dough’ for the pottery is prepared by mixing quartz stone powder, powdered glass, Multani Mitti (Fuller’s Earth), borax, gum and water. Another source cites Katira Gond powder (a gum), and saaji (soda bicarbonate) as ingredients. Some of this pottery is semi-transparent and mostly decorated with animal and bird motifs. Being fired at very low temperature makes them fragile. The range of items is primarily decorative,
such as ashtrays, vases, coasters, small bowls and boxes for trinkets. The colour palette is restricted to blue derived from the cobalt oxide, green from the copper oxide and white, though other non-conventional colours, such as yellow and brown are sometimes included.
History of Blue Art Pottery
Other accounts of the craft state that blue pottery came to Jaipur in the early 19th century under the ruler Sawai Ram Singh II(1835 – 1880).The Jaipur king had sent local artisans to Delhi to be trained in the craft. Some specimens of older ceramic work can be seen in the Rambagh Palace, where the fountains are lined with blue tiles. However, by the 1950s, blue pottery had all but vanished from Jaipur, when it was re-introduced through the efforts of the muralist and painter Kripal Singh Shekhawat, with the support of patrons such as Kamladevi Chattopadhaya and Rajmata Gayatri Devi.
Why Blue Art Pottery is so Expensive?
Black Pottery of Rajasthan
Black Pottery is a unique tradition that has been famously nurtured in the Sawai Madhopur district of Rajasthan. Local artisans use thoroughly cleaned clay obtained from the banks of River Banas to mould it into myriad shapes on their potter’s wheel. Final goods are sun-dried and then baked in a kiln, which gives the items a greyish-black colour.
The mitti, (clay) taken from the banks of the nearby Banas River is cleaned thoroughly, the unwanted stones and straw removed from its consistency. The clay is then stored and used as and when required. An Approximated quantity of prepared mud is placed on the wheel and turned beautifully by the potter, and a shape as desired is achieved with much finesse. The form is cut out of the wheel from the bottom, using a length of ordinary thread. The potter, skilled with the usage of his hands, manually shapes and polishes the product, till he smoothens it out. The turned and polished product is dried in the sun for two hours, in the shade for another two and finally fired.
