Terra-cotta, an Italian term for pottery or earthenware ('baked clay'). The name is not applied in England to ordinary pottery vessels with thin walls, but is confined to objects of the nature of bricks, and usually of comparatively large size and unglazed. Statues, statuettes, bas-reliefs, and architectural members such as columns, cornices, friezes, consoles, and the like made of burnt clay are said to be executed in terra-cotta whether they are ancient or modern. But the term is not confined to articles of a decorative character. The colour of terra-cotta is either buff yellow, or red, the former being the more common. Many masterpieces of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture are executed in this material, and a considerable number of works in burnt clay, by Italian artists who lived in the middle age and early Renaissance periods, are also exquisite productions. Illustrations of a number of these ancient works of art in terra-cotta will be found in the published catalogues of the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum. Architectural ornaments of a very effective kind were also executed in this material in ancient times.
Distinguished modern sculptors sometimes produce works in terra-cotta, and for the last thirty or forty years it has been increasingly employed, either partly or wholly, for the fronts and other portions of important buildings (see DOULTON, TINWORTH). The new Natural History Museum at South Kensington and a few other buildings in its neighbourhood, as well as elsewhere in London, are examples. Terra-cotta is peculiarly well suited for architectural work in towns like the metropolis where stone too readily decays, or in cities to which stone has to be brought from a long distance. Berlin is thus remotely situated, and in that city many large and highly ornate modern buildings are executed in this material. See C. T. Davis, Manufacture of Brick, Terra Cotta, &c. (new ed. 1889).