Parian ware

It was developed around 1845 by the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer Mintons, and named after Paros, the Greek island renowned for its fine-textured, white Parian marble, used since antiquity for sculpture.

Parian was essentially designed to imitate carved marble,[1] with the great advantage that it could be prepared in a liquid form and cast in a mould, enabling mass production.

We have not felt it our duty to come to any such decision; especially as it would appear from the statement of each party that, whichever may have actually been first in publicly producing articles in this material both were contemporaneously working with success towards the same result.

In 1845, as part of a concerted effort to raise public taste and improve manufactures, the Art Union of London commissioned Copeland to make a series of figures after works by leading contemporary sculptors.

[6] Parian was initially used for relatively high quality work, but later was produced by a great number of manufacturers and considerably lost its cachet.