Ceramics museum

A Sèvres dinner-service on display at the Museo delle porcellane di Firenze.

The Gladstone Pottery Museum.

A ceramics museum is a museum wholly or largely devoted to ceramics, usually ceramic art. Its collections may also include glass and enamel, but typically concentrate on pottery, including porcelain. Most national collections are in a more general museum covering all of the arts, or just the decorative arts. However, there are a number of specialized ceramics museums, with some focusing on the ceramics of just one country, region or manufacturer. Others have international collections, which may be centered on ceramics from Europe or East Asia or have a more global emphasis.

Outstanding major ceramics collections in general museums include The Palace Museum, Beijing, with 340,000 pieces, and the National Palace Museum in Taipei city, Taiwan (25,000 pieces); both are mostly derived from the Chinese Imperial collection, and are almost entirely of pieces from China. In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum (over 75,000 pieces, mostly after 1400 CE) and British Museum (mostly before 1400 CE) have very strong international collections. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC (12,000, all East Asian) have perhaps the best of the many fine collections in the large city museums of the United States. The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, has more than 45,000 glass objects.

Specialist museums

Porcelain miners at the Meissen Porcelain Museum

The Terracotta Army on display; view from visitor's gallery.

The Musée nationale de la porcelaine Adrien Dubouché in Limoges concentrates on the local Limoges porcelain.

The 19th century building (formerly the Egyptian embassy) of the Tehran National Glass and Ceramics Museum.

The State Ceramics Museum, Moscow: A dinner service presented by Napoleon to Alexander I of Russia upon signing the Treaties of Tilsit.

A bottle kiln at the Coalport China Museum.

Many of the historic ceramics manufacturers have museums at or very near their factories, sometimes owned by the company, sometimes independent institutions. Among the more important ones, with large collections, covered in the articles on the concern, are: Meissen porcelain, Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory, Doccia porcelain, Royal Worcester, Wedgwood (now independent), Royal Crown Derby and Herend Porcelain.

Some other specialist ceramics museums are (number of pieces are approximate):

in Australia

• National Museum of Australian Pottery, Holbrook, New South Wales – Australian domestic pottery, 1500 pieces

in Belgium

• Musée de la Céramique, Andenne, Wallonia – tells you all about the famous ceramic from the city of Andenne

in Brazil

• Museu A CASA, São Paulo, São Paulo.
• Oficina de Cerâmica Francisco Brennand, Recife, Pernambuco. 2000 pieces
• Museu Udo Knoff de Azulejaria e Cerâmica, Salvador, Bahia. 1200 pieces

in Canada

• Gardiner Museum, Toronto, with 3,000 pieces.

in China

• Mumingtang Ancient Porcelain Museum, Beijing
• Liuwan Museum of Ancient Painted Pottery, 38,000 Chinese archaeological finds
• The Terracotta Army are on display where they were discovered near Xi'an
• FLICAM, near Xi'an is a museum for international contemporary ceramics
• Yixing Ceramics Museum, 30,000 pieces, mainly from the Yixing area.

in the Czech Republic

• Museum of Czech Porcelain, Prague

in France

• Sèvres - Cité de la céramique, 50,000 pieces, 5,000 of Sèvres porcelain and contemporary ceramics
• Musee de la Ceramique, Rouen, 5,000 pieces, 900 displayed, mostly local faience.
• Musée nationale de la porcelaine Adrien Dubouché, Limoges, 15,000 pieces, mostly Limoges porcelain also rare pieces by Böttger
• The extensive archaeological excavations at La Graufesenque, one of the major production centres of Ancient Roman pottery, are open to the public with a museum on the potteries.
• Musée Départemental de la Céramique, Lezoux.
• Musée de la Céramique de Desvres, Desvres.

in Germany

• Zwinger Museum - the Porzellansammlung, or Porcelain Collection, at the Zwinger Museum in Dresden
• Hetjens-Museum or Deutsches Keramik-Museum in Düsseldorf, 15,000 pieces
• Terra-Sigillata-Museum Rheinzabern, Rheinzabern, for Ancient Roman terra sigillata ware made near the town

in Iran

• National Glass and Ceramics Museum, Tehran

in Italy

• Museo della Ceramica, in the Picture Gallery, Savona,
• Museo delle porcellane, in the Boboli Gardens, Florence
• International Museum of Ceramics, in Faenza,
• Montelupo Museum of Tuscan Ceramics, Montelupo Fiorentino

Japan

• claims to have over 500 ceramics museums, public and private, including ones at Ibaraki, Bizen, Kyoto, Arita (Kyushu Ceramic Museum), and Tokyo. The Arita Porcelain Park is perhaps the world's only theme park based on ceramics.
• NGK Museum, specializing in industrial ceramics

in South Korea

• Gyeonggi Ceramic Museum, Gwanggju
• Icheon World Ceramic Center,

in the Netherlands

• Princessehof Ceramics Museum, Leeuwarden,

in Portugal

• Museu de Cerâmica, Caldas da Rainha, Portuguese and other ceramics,
• Museu de Cerâmica de Sacavém, Sacavém

in Russia

• State Ceramics Museum, Kuskovo Palace, Moscow, 30,000 pieces, Russian, French and other ceramics from the Sheremetev collection,
• The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg - includes the Museum of The Imperial Porcelain Factory and the famous Frog service made by Josiah Wedgwood for Catherine the Great.
• Pottery Museum, Skopin, Ryazan Oblast, Skopin pottery

in Spain

• Museu de Ceràmica, in the Museu de les Arts Aplicades, Barcelona
• Museo Nacional de Cerámica y de las Artes Suntuarias González Martí, Valencia, with over 5,000 pieces, mostly produced in the region.

in Sweden

• Gustavsberg Porcelin Museum (Gustavsberg, Stockholm), the history of the Gustavsberg Porcelin Factory

in Taiwan

• Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum

in Thailand

• Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum, Bangkok, opened 2005, 2,000 pieces of the pottery of Thailand and neighbouring countries.

in Ukraine

• Pottery Museum, Novoselivka, Vinnytsia Oblast
• Folk Pottery Museum, Opyshnia, Poltava Oblast

in the United Kingdom

• Aberystwyth University Ceramics Collection
• Coalport China Museum, mainly Coalport China
• Gladstone Pottery Museum - working pottery museum
• Jackfield Tile Museum
• Museum of Royal Worcester, at the old Royal Worcester factory site.
• Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Bloomsbury, London. 1400 pieces of classic Chinese porcelain from the 10th to 18th centuries.
• Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, mainly Staffordshire pottery
• Spode Museum, for Spode
• Wedgwood Museum

in the United States

• American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, California), 7,000 pieces
• Museum of Ceramics (East Liverpool, Ohio), 4,000 mainly Ohio pottery
• Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred, New York, 8,000 pieces, including glass.
• Sparta Teapot Museum, Sparta, NC. Newly opened, with 6,000 teapots

See also

• List of museums with major collections of Asian art
• List of museums with major collections of Islamic art
• List of museums with major collections of Greek and Roman antiquities

References

• Peterson, Jan. The craft and art of clay: a complete potter's handbook, Laurence King Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-85669-354-6, ISBN 978-1-85669-354-7, Google books Listing of museum ceramics collections (heavily weighted to US) pp. 396–412.

Further reading

• An Artist's Travel Guide to the Ceramics Museums of Europe: With Line Drawings Reproduced from the Author's Sketchbooks, Alexandra Copeland, Artists Travel Guides, 1999, ISBN 0-9586098-0-2, ISBN 978-0-9586098-0-7 - covers over 120 museums in 19 countries

External links

• International Ceramics Directory –comprehensive list of ceramics collections with links