Barbotine

Barbotine is the French for ceramic slip, or a mixture of clay and water used for moulding or decorating pottery.

In the first, common from the Ancient World onwards, the barbotine is piped onto the object rather as cakes are decorated with icing, using a quill, horn, or other kind of nozzle.

The slip would normally be in a contrasting colour to the rest of the vessel, and forms a pattern, or inscription, that is slightly raised above the main surface.

Slip or barbotine is cast in moulds to form three-dimensional decorative sections which when dried out are added to the main vessel.

This was a method of painting art pottery in brightly-coloured slips, in French also called peinture à la barbotine or in gouache vitrifiable.