Containers: Cooking Containers

The technology of working basic materials changed little during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries despite strong stylistic changes. Objects were made by individual craftsmen with the same kinds of hand tools their great-great-grandfathers had used. Even in large workshops, production revolved around hand methods and hand power. While local craftsmen often made pieces to order for local customers, larger workshops employed many highly skilled workmen capable of tremendous speed, and precision developed through constant repetition. The contrast between local work and large-scale production was not so much a difference in manufacturing technology as a difference in skill level and experience.