The Gardiner Museum is open seven days a week! Explore our permanent collection, discover special exhibitions, and get hands-on with clay in our studios. We look forward to welcoming you.
Discover an installation of works by American artist Sharif Bey on now in our lobby. Bey's practice is influenced by African and Afro-diasporic aesthetic traditions, as well as ancient Andean ceramics and contemporary popular culture.
Summer will be here before you know it! Don't wait to sign up for the Gardiner's popular summer camps. New this year, all our week-long sessions are full-day multimedia camps, so kids can draw, paint, sculpt, and more.
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
Help us continue to offer innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects in person and online, as well as plan for the future. Please consider making a donation today.
In the closing years of the eighteenth century, Josiah Spode developed the first bone china. This hybrid porcelain contains almost 50 per cent calcined bone ash as well as kaolin and feldspar. It amalgamated two earlier developments in English porcelain: bone ash, used first by the Bow manufactory; and kaolin, discovered by William Cookworthy. Bone china was soon adopted by many producers in England because wares could be made with thin, strong bodies that were more stable in the kiln and less expensive to produce.
By 1799 Joseph Poulson, the partner of Thomas Minton, began making bone china next door to Minton’s earthenware manufactory in Stoke-on-Trent. It was marketed by Minton and financed by William Pownall. Production continued until about 1816. During this period at least 948 different patterns were introduced. In 1824, a purpose-built manufactory was built by Minton who introduced an improved formula for bone china. Minton was one of the foremost and most innovative producers of ceramics in England throughout the nineteenth century.
The Gardiner Museum collection of Minton was established by N. Robert Cumming. It ranges from a deep assemblage of early patterns and shapes, through to wares of the early twentieth century.
1. Dessert Plate from the Milton Service, "Our Night Camp on Eagle River - Expecting the Crees" (detail), England, Stoke-On-Trent, Minton, c.1967, Purchased with a Gift from N. Robert Cumming, G04.20.1
2. Dessert Plate from the Milton Service, "Our Night Camp on Eagle River - Expecting the Crees" (detail), England, Stoke-On-Trent, Minton, c.1967, Purchased with a Gift from N. Robert Cumming, G04.20.1
3. Cake Plate with Arctic Landscape (detail), England, Manufacturer Unknown, c.1840, The Barbara and James Moscovich Collection of Canadian Historical China, G13.15.44