Sprigging (pottery)

Pâte-sur-pâte is a very labour-intensive, and so expensive, method of producing similar, but more refined, effects in contrasting colors, invented in China and then in France in the mid-19th century.

The clay body for the sprig is pushed into the mould, the back scraped flat, then released on a damp cloth pad.

Sprigging is used in ancient Roman pottery,[2] and in China at least as early as the 6th century AD,[3] continuing thereafter.

In Britain the first successful attempts to imitate both German wares and the Yixing teapots which were now being imported, mostly via the Netherlands, came around 1690.

[7] They used metal moulds, which tend to leave a thin line impressed into the body around the outline of the sprig.