Bernard Moore and the Development of Copper-red glazes

I don't want to stir up a storm about who won the race to re-create ancient Chinese "Sang de Boeuf" glazes in England  - was it Bernard Moore or the Taylors at the Ruskin Pottery? But this small  Bernard Moore vase  must be of great interest to the debate.

The quest was the holy grail of potters in the Western world in the 19th Century. The glaze, technically a high temperature reduction fired process using copper oxide on a hard paste porcelain body (which could survive the firing) results in a highly attractive scratch resistant, rich red glaze with purple streaks or spotting.

This vase could have been produced as early as 1902 - see Aileen Dawson's book on Bernard Moore p.28 Plate II for a photograph of a very similar example.

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A Ruskin Pottery High Fired Sang de Boeuf Vase

The connection between this vase and the previous Leach pot may not be immediately apparent but Leach was a friend of the Ruskin proprietors and a frequent visitor to their pottery. They shared a love of “oriental” shapes and glazes but stylistically they were very different.

Edward Richard Taylor and his son William Howson Taylor are often credited with being the first potters to successfully re-create ancient Chinese high fired glazes in this country. This simple and beautiful vase was made in 1933 just before the pottery closed although they had mastered the technique in the early 1900s - but were they the first in England to do so?

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St Ives Pottery Earthenware Bowl 1920s

This anonymous small pot could have been made by Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, Michael Cardew or Katherine Pleydell Bouverie. Although it is clearly marked with a crisp SI mark in a circle ( in use from 1921) it is unsigned. Dipped in a brown glaze, except for the foot where it would have been held by the finger tips while being dipped, it is simply decorated with brushed wavy lines. It was fired with a small chip to the rim - this flaw and the imperfections of the glaze were apparently of no concern to the potter.

It must have appeared very dull, crude and alien to the British taste of the time. The pottery had just been established, they built there own kilns and used local clay, often of poor quality, and fired their kilns with local wood including Rhododendrons - only a small percentage of the pots made survived the firing. There was a completely different mind set at work here and it took a long time to be appreciated fully.

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An early William Moorcroft "Pomegranate" Vase

William Moorcroft was educated at the Wedgwood Institute, Burslem, and at South Kensignton where he was influenced by the design styles of William Morris and the artist Walter Crane. His tublined, decorated art pieces were always signed and this early "Pomegranate" vase, dating from 1915, is an good example of the high quality of his work.

Now hugely popular with collectors his work was largely ignored until a 1973 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum introduced his work to a wider audience and established his position as a major artist/potter.

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Clarice Cliff: Art Deco Queen

From "Bonkers" to Bizarre. A Coral Firs Bon Jour preserve pot from the early 1930s.

Clarice Cliff, Charlotte Rhead and Susie Cooper - the big design names in Art Deco in England dominated the period and helped introduce modernism to the Great British public, often via mass-produced tableware incorporating bright colours and new shapes. These three women undoubtedly bought into Gordon Forsyth's view of the "educational importance of the appreciation of beauty in mass-produced articles" and the need to break down "the barriers between the fine arts and industrial arts."

Gordon Forsyth was a colleague of Richard Joyce at Pilkington Royal Lancastrian (see post below). Forsyth and Susie Cooper collaborated on the celebrated Gloria Lustre ware produced at AE Gray Ltd.

This pot is not for sale

Pilkington's Royal Lancastrian Flambe Lustre Vase by Richard Joyce

A completely bonkers flambe lustre vase with relief moulded  fish and seaweed - 22cm in height with impressed marks and painted Richard Joyce monogram. This is a wonderful example of Great British eccentricity and technical innovation from the early 20th Century.

The ruby lustre glaze is a development of the scarlet and tangerine uranium galzes  introduced in 1903 by William Burton.

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Sir Edmund Elton (b.1846 - d.1920)

Sir Edmund Elton was one of the most extraordinary English potters working in this hugely creative period of English Decorative ceramics. Men and women who pushed the boundaries in terms of design and glaze development to the extreme.

He started experimenting with liquid gold and platinum glaze effects from 1902 and produced metallic, crackle glazed ware which must rank among the most daring and beautiful pottery produced at the time.

A world class act - rock on Sir Elton.

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