barbotine

thumb|Cup, 6.5 cm. high, Aswan, Egypt, 1st-2nd century AD, decorated with type A piped or trailed barbotine patterns. Barbotine is the French for ceramic slip, or a mixture of clay and water used for moulding or decorating pottery. In English the term is used for three different techniques of decorating pottery, though in all cases mainly for historical works. For clarity, these types are numbered here as A-C (which are not standard terms). thumb|Gallo-Roman cup with type B barbotine or sprigging|sprigged decoration

==A: Piped slip decoration== In the first, common from the Ancient World onwards, the barbotine is piped onto the object rather as cakes are decorated with icing, using a quill, horn, or other kind of nozzle. The slip would normally be in a contrasting colour to the rest of the vessel, and forms a pattern, or inscription, that is slightly raised above the main surface. This is normally called slip-trailing in English today, and for English pottery (such as the works of Thomas Toft, d. 1698), but "barbotine" remains common in archaeology.