<p>Khurja Pottery is traditional ceramic pottery art with relief work using earth colours like orange, brown and terracotta worked on to a white background, giving them a rich artistic appearance. The highly creative and artistic products include decorative items tableware, utensils, and the like, rich in both composition and quality. 
</p><p>Khurja city is now famous for its Khurja Pottery and ceramics. Khurja supplies a large portion of the ceramics used in the country, hence it is sometimes called The Ceramics City.
</p><p>The history of Khurja Pottery goes back to around 14th century, when some retreating (wounded) soldiers from Timur's army decided to stay back. Most of these soldiers were potters and they brought their art of pottery with them. Starting with red clay pottery they moved on to blue glaze and on red clay articles with engobe of white clay, painting floral designs with cupric oxide and applying a soft glaze containing glass and borax etc.
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During <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_II" title="World War II">World War II</a>, ban was imposed on various metals for making household utensils and import of ceramic goods was drastically curtailed. To meet the demand of ceramic wares mainly for war hospitals, the Government of <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh" class="mw-redirect" title="Uttar Pradesh">Uttar Pradesh</a> established a ceramic unit. After the war, the factory was closed down in 1946 due to lack of demand of its products. The factory was equipped with three small kilns, two chimneys and three ball mills. The Government of <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh" class="mw-redirect" title="Uttar Pradesh">Uttar Pradesh</a> made a thoughtful consideration for the utilization of the available machinery, other capital items and instead of closing it down, converted into a Pottery Development Centre. It was the first pottery related to common facilities Center in the country where entrepreneurs were provided the facilities for firing their green wares in the Government kilns.
<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sankoswal" title="User:Sankoswal">Sankoswal</a>
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<span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>