'This Ware he must grind in a Mill': Remaking Ceramics in the Long Eighteenth Century

I spoke at the Cambridge Early Modern World History Seminar in November 2026. My paper was entitled ‘This Ware he must grind in a Mill’: Remaking Ceramics in the Long Eighteenth Century’.

My presentation provided an overview of my project, highlighting the diversity of period mending practice and the challenges of studying repair. I drew together some work from my DURARE fellowship and forwarded an analysis of Aaron Hill’s 1718 Four Essays, which contains a detailed method for creating new vessels from ground imported porcelain. I argued that the boundary between whole and broken was much thinner in the period than we might expect, and situated this as part of the rapid contest of early porcelain production.

Sophia Feist and I shared the session; Sophia’s paper ‘Court Tailors, Liveries, and the Performance of Politics in the Sixteenth-century Holy Roman Empire’ presented a chapter from her forthcoming thesis.