All there in blue and white
by Rebecca Wallis
Spode's Incense Burners
from Pam Woolliscroft
I have written about 'Spode and Incense Burners' on my Spode History blog. The function of an incense burner was to gently perfume a room. You can find my article about items made by Spode in the early 1800s for this specific use by clicking here.
Here is an image of one of the many styles of incense burner produced by Spode. It is called a 'Beaded Upright Scollopd Incense Burner'. Made from very beautiful, translucent and very white Spode bone china it dates from about 1824. It could be decorated in different ways. Patterns are recorded in the Pattern Books now in the Spode archive.
This is decorated with a version of a pattern with a charming, if bewildering name, 'Tumbledown Dick'. This version of the pattern is in cobalt blue and gold - two of the most expensive ceramic raw materials - helping to confirm that these specialist items were for the well-to-do. More can be found out about this popular pattern here on the T page of my Spode ABC.
If you have an incense burner in your collection let us have some details and an image to add to this page. Please use the contact form in the first instance.
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The Sweet Smell of Success
from Ben Miller of the Wedgwood Museum
by Rebecca Wallis
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| Plate, lead-glazed earthenware, underglaze blue printed 'Willow' pattern, probably Staffordshire, dated 1818 |
For many, the blue and white Willow pattern is the most
iconic of all British ceramic designs. Its scene of temple, willow tree, bridge
and boat was inspired by Chinese porcelain but the story of the tragic lovers
it supposedly depicts was actually invented in the mid-19th century by the
British ceramics industry as a clever marketing tool.
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| Rice plate, earthenware, underglaze blue printed 'Makassar' pattern, J.& M. P. Bell & Co. Ltd., Glasgow, c1890 |
The combination of cobalt blue decoration and a white ground
is one of the most familiar and distinctive visual effects in ceramics.
Originating in Iran and perfected in China, blue and white ceramics have been
made for over 800 years. Exported from China in vast quantities from the 14th
century, first to the Middle East and later to Europe, they were highly prized
and widely imitated.
In Britain, blue and white decoration is most strongly
associated with printing on ceramics, a technique pioneered in the 1750s and
brought to a mass market by 1800. Printing allowed the increased production of
ceramics with high-quality and technically-precise decoration. The ready assimilation
of designs from other print media enabled a rapid response to contemporary
society and culture, and a wide reach.
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| Dish, earthenware, underglaze blue printed pattern, Staffordshire, England, c1820 |
The display Blue and White: British Printed Ceramics
showcases the wide variety of designs, including the ever popular Willow pattern, from the
1750s to the present day: designs inspired by landscapes, flora and fauna,
history and global trade. The continuity of themes from historic to
contemporary production demonstrates the enduring appeal and relevance of blue
and white.
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| Plate, 'Foot and Mouth no. 5', Paul Scott, England, 2001, reworked 2012 |
Generously supported by The Headley Trust, the display
includes loans from The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, The Spode MuseumTrust and private lenders. Also featured are ceramics from The Wedgwood Collection, on show at the V&A for the first time since the Collection was
saved by the Art Fund with major support from the Heritage Lottery Fund,
private donations and a public appeal.
Rebecca Wallis is Curator of Western 19th century ceramics & glass at the V&A.
Blue and White: British Printed Ceramics is on at the V & A until 3 January 2016.
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from Pam Woolliscroft
Following on from Ben Miller's sweet smell of success with reference to Wedgwood, below, I thought it might be interesting to discover more about ceramics and smells!
I have written about 'Spode and Incense Burners' on my Spode History blog. The function of an incense burner was to gently perfume a room. You can find my article about items made by Spode in the early 1800s for this specific use by clicking here.
Here is an image of one of the many styles of incense burner produced by Spode. It is called a 'Beaded Upright Scollopd Incense Burner'. Made from very beautiful, translucent and very white Spode bone china it dates from about 1824. It could be decorated in different ways. Patterns are recorded in the Pattern Books now in the Spode archive.
This is decorated with a version of a pattern with a charming, if bewildering name, 'Tumbledown Dick'. This version of the pattern is in cobalt blue and gold - two of the most expensive ceramic raw materials - helping to confirm that these specialist items were for the well-to-do. More can be found out about this popular pattern here on the T page of my Spode ABC.
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| Spode incense burner from the V & A collections |
Other manufacturers made incense burners too and many were of similar styles and patterns. Spode called this shape a 'Dolphin Tripod' and you can see 2 versions of it on my blog but this one is from Wedgwood. Click here for another version in black basalt.
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| Wedgwood incense burner from the V & A collections |
The Sweet Smell of Success
from Ben Miller of the Wedgwood Museum
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A selection of 18th century Wedgwood perfume bottles
© Wedgwood Museum Trust |
Both ceramics and perfume production can be traced back to
the ancient world. Much like the supply of fashionable ceramics the history of
perfume has been inextricably linked with the discovery of new and exotic
materials, the refinement of manufacturing techniques and the demands of the
customer.
Wedgwood’s production of scent bottles mirrors the familiar supply
and demand of fashionable tastes, of which royalty were often the patrons.
It was perhaps the French aristocracy that most popularised the use of perfume throughout 18th century Europe. Figures such as
Marie Antoinette and Madame de Pompadour spent vast amounts of money on sourcing
the raw materials (violet, rose powder, jasmine, orange flowers and tuberoses)
in order to produce their favourite scent.
Within Georgian England it was primarily the apothecaries
who sold perfume. Jewellers and trinket shops also sold perfume and a wide
range of perfume containers. Indeed, the museum's archive show' that a number of
individuals and retailers in London purchased perfume (smelling) bottles
alongside products such as beads, cameos, arsenic pots, and eardrop dispensers
from Wedgwood.
Josiah Wedgwood's first mention of 'smelling bottles' came
in April 1788 when writing to his son Josiah II. He remarked 'The smelling bottles with the
stadholder & the princess are very good & pretty things, particularly
that with the festoon border of which pattern I would have the rest made.' Shape-book One contains illustrations of a
number of jasper perfume bottle designs. The bottles were produced with a
threaded neck and were designed to take a cork stopper and metal screw top. On
display in the Wedgwood museum gallery are seven jasper bottles and one cut glass
with inset jasper cameo. The subjects for the relief decoration consist of a
number of classical subjects as well as portraits of King George III and Queen
Charlotte.
I believe that the production of scent bottles, in
particular those made of jasper, is comparable to Josiah's business savvy move
to create Queen’s ware. Josiah's
identification of both the increasingly fashionable use of perfume among the
aristocracy of Europe combined with the realisation of his successful jasper body, much adored by
aristocracy, highlights the fact that he had his finger well and truly on the
pulse of 18th century culture.
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from Joe Perry, Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
They say don't judge a book by its cover, and that
appearances can be deceiving. But when you have nothing else to go on, it can
be difficult to interpret an object in any other way.
Take this tile. It’s clearly a ceramic object and the expert
may recognise it’s made from stonepaste. This body, consisting chiefly of
crushed quartz with glass and small amounts of clay, creates a white-firing
ceramic and is indicative of an Islamic pottery tradition. This conclusion is
backed up by the style of decoration and the use of Arabic script.
And what of this decoration? Inside a floral border the tile
bears two columns of Arabic inscription below an arch in which various
implements are depicted, including a pair of scissors and a comb. Assuming we
are unable to read the Arabic inscription, as was the case when this object
arrived at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, what do we make of this
object?
If you're thinking, "Evidently
the price list of a barber", you're wrong! But don't be upset, this is
exactly what curators thought when the tile was acquired by the museum in 1950.
The tile was misunderstood for decades until a visiting scholar finally
interpreted the Arabic inscription.
This is actually a funerary tile, taken from the tombstone
of a barber from a graveyard in Tehran. The tombstone was erected by the
brother of Muhammed Haja Tuba who died in A.H. 1018 (the year in the Hijri
calendar is equivalent to 1609 AD).
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery has a significant and
representative collection of Islamic Ceramics with a number of particularly
important pieces. This tile will soon be on loan to Birmingham Museum & ArtGallery as part of the exhibition, Qalam: the art of beautiful writing.
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from Rebecca Klarner
The factory of Meissen
in Germany was the first European factory to unravel the secret of 'white gold' – porcelain. Porcelain had been imported from China from the middle of the 16th century and was sold for extremely high prices. In 1710 the alchemist Johann
Friedrich Böttger was finally successful in his experiments and the first
porcelain was produced in Meissen. Böttger basically was a prisoner of Augustus
the Strong – Elector of Saxony and King of Poland – who took him into 'protective custody' to find out for him how to make porcelain and gold.
This cup and saucer
can be dated by their design to the 1720s or 1730s. The whole of Europe was
fascinated by everything foreign and exotic and goods from East Asia were
extremely popular but also extremely expensive. You can see this perfectly well
in this example: one of the handles broke off, but instead of simply buying a
new cup it was meticulously, and surely not cheaply, repaired with an ormolu
handle.
This little set – made for drinking hot chocolate which was, together
with coffee and tea, one of the new, fashionable and exotic drinks – shows
Chinese people and Chinese life through the eyes of a European. Johann
Gregorius Höroldt is probably the most famous painter having ever worked for
the Meissen factory. He started working for Meissen in 1720 and the one design
he is still most famous for are his so-called 'Höroldt-Chinese people' which we
also find on this chocolate set. Of course Höroldt cannot possibly have personally
painted all of those thousands of Chinese scenes on Meissen pieces, but almost
all of the designs can be directly ascribed to him. He had never been to China
but he drew his 'Chinese' scenes on large sheets of paper which were then used
for years by him and other painters in the factory. Pinpricks on some of the
drawings show that they were actually used in the workshops. Coal dust was
powdered through these little holes so that the outlines of the designs showed
on the porcelain.
A merchant named Georg
Wilhelm Schulz bought these drawings shortly after 1900 and he had a small
number of the 132 sheets - which were unknown until then - published in 1922.
Since then this collection of drawings was called the Schulz-Codex and it was
only fully published for the first time in 2010.
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A bearded man from Cologne
from Rebecca Klarner, Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
This smiling face has
travelled quite a long way. It was made in the first half of the 16th century in Cologne in Germany
and came to England
with many others of its kind.
These vessels are
called Bartmannkrug, which translates as 'beard man jug'. They were made in
vast numbers in
This smiling fellow
eventually made its way to the collection of the Potteries
Museum and Art
Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent
where it can be found amongst other German stoneware. Its big belly gives it
quite an impressive size of 38.5 cm in height and also more than enough space
to accommodate decoration. In this case it sports three big oval medallions:
the centre medallion shows (on a shield) a knight on horseback drawing his
sword. The shield is decorated with other heraldic symbols such as helmets,
horses, and aigrettes. The two other medallions to the left and the right show
the same crowned coat-of-arms. This coat-of-arms is not completely unravelled
yet. It is quite elaborate with many different heraldic elements, but parts of
it seem to point in the direction of the duchy of Cleves-Jülich-Berg. The other
components of the coat-of-arms are still to be identified and due to our
bearded man’s long and exhausting journey and the
So if you should
happen to be an expert in German heraldry and can give any more information please
feel free to contact the ceramics department of the museum. You can use the Contact Us tab at the top of this page.
But why a big bearded
man as decoration? Why not something that is a bit more let's say eye-pleasing?
The answer is, we don't know the answer or rather it seems to have been
forgotten. There are several theories. One links it to the mythical 'Wild Man' creature that can be found in Northern European folklore from the 14th century and is later used in various contexts. Other opinions say that this
ornamentation had a purely decorative character as mask decorations were widely
used in Renaissance times in various contexts.
However, we also find pieces
that have individualised features to portray people and also pieces that have
christomorphic features. Also examples of female 'bartmann jugs' are known - without a beard though.
Another name for these
vessels was 'Bellarmines', referring to the Italian Cardinal Robert Bellarmine
(1542-1621). Cardinal Bellarmine appears to have been very unpopular with the
English, and also the (Protestant) Dutch, most likely because of the role he
played in the Counter-Reformation. Connecting his name with a vessel like this
could either be simply to ridicule him and his appearance or could be due to
his anti-alcoholic stance.
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'Staffordshire porcelain'?
from Joe Perry, Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
Porcelain – not just for pretty
things…
What comes
to mind when you hear the phrase, 'Staffordshire porcelain'? A quick search on
the internet brings up what most of us imagine. Finely made tea sets, sometimes
elaborately decorated, sometimes elegant in their simplicity, dainty porcelain
figures, graceful and iconic in form. All of these objects have their place and significance in ceramic
history.
But porcelain is not just for pretty things…
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Rubber Glove Formers
© Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
A.G. Hackney & Co. Ltd, 1983 Burslem,
Stoke-on-Trent.Accession Number: 1984.P.37
|
These
rubber glove formers are an important reminder of the other side of the pottery
industry, the side preoccupied with the manufacture of ceramics for use in
industry and manufacture. Porcelain is hard wearing, able to withstand extreme
temperature changes and has high chemical resistance.
Formers
like these are mounted onto racks and dipped in liquid latex. This coating can
then be sprayed with cotton (if you want a soft, fluffy lining) and vulcanised at 100 °C.
This ensures the rubber remains strong and flexible. Once cooled and dried, the
gloves can be turned out are ready to be worn! You can see the process for
yourself by clicking on the YouTube video below.
A.G.
Hackney & Co Ltd operated from 1938 to 2008 manufacturing porcelains for
use in the electrical and radio industries as well as formers for latex
processes. Other formers include swim caps, beach balls, football bladders,
baby bottle teats and balloon shapes. These formers were gifted to the
Potteries Museum & Art Gallery by the manufacturer in 1984.
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Spot the differences...
from Pam Woolliscroft
with thanks to members' collections
from Pam Woolliscroft
with thanks to members' collections
A series of early 19th century teapots in similar style from different manufacturers aiming at the same customers.
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| Wedgwood teapot from the V & A, c1810 Museum no. 2375&A-1901 |
Each museum dates their item slightly differently showing that it is not always easy to date pieces.
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| Spode 'crocodial' teapot, Spode Museum, c1805 Collection no. WTC 3017 |
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| Also available in white! Wedgwood teapot from the Wedgwood Museum c1800 Accession No. 10703 |
