Slipware

Slipware is pottery identified by its primary decorating process where slip is placed onto the leather-hard (semi-hardened) clay body surface before firing by dipping, painting or splashing.

The slip placed onto a wet or leather-hard clay body surface by a variety of techniques including dipping, painting, piping or splashing.

Slip decoration is an ancient technique in Chinese pottery also, used to cover whole vessels over 4,000 years ago.

[4] Later potters mostly combined or replaced the use of slip with ceramic glazes and pigments offering a tougher finish and a wider range of colours.

[5] A coating of white or coloured slip (sometimes called by the French term engobe in American English) can be applied to the whole body of the article, or just one part, such as outside or inside of a cup or jug, to improve its appearance, to give a smoother surface to a rough body, mask an inferior colour or for decorative effect.

Jar, Giyan IV type, Western Iran, 2500-2000 BC, earthenware with slip-painted decoration
Charger with Charles II in the Boscobel Oak , English, c. 1685. Such large plates, for display rather than use, take slip-trailing to an extreme, building up lattices of thick trails of slip.