FAIHNCE

(ta-yens’), initaticn porcelain, a kind of fine pottery, superior to the common pottery in its glazing, beauty of form, and richne of painting. Several kinds of faience are distinguished by critics. It derived its name from tHe town of Faenza, in Italy, where a fine sort of pottery called majolica was mantfactured as early as the fourteenth century. The majolica reached its greatest perfection between 1530 and 1560. En the Louvre, the Musée de Cluny, the British and Victoria and Albert Museums, at Berlin, and at Dresden are rich collections of it. The modern faience appears to have been invented about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Faenza, as an imitation of majolica, and obtained its name in France, where a man from Faenza, having discovered a similar sort of clay at Nevers, had introduced the manufacture of it. True faience is made of a yellowish or ruddy earth, covered with an enamel which is usually white, but may be coloured. This enamel is a gla rendered opaque by oxide of tin or other suitable material, and is intended not only to glaze the body, but to conceal it entirely. See PoTTERY.— Cf. M. L. Solon, The Old French Faience.