Wiener - Ceramics

In the 19th century, the town of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England, became the

center of pottery production because of good sources of clay in the area as well as

coal sources to fire the kilns.  By 1850 there were over 5,000 kilns; today there are 50.

The ceramics were both functional and decorative; this museum collects the decorative.

These first "Staffordshire Pieces" were earthenware made in molds of plaster-of-Paris.  They 
could be made fairly quickly and inexpensively, so that they could be sold cheaply to

ordinary people.  Thus, not only wealthy aristocrats could have statues in their homes,

but ordinary Englishmen could also have these works of art.

"Staffordshire Figures" portrayed people of all classes in all kinds of activities.

Soon, potters began experimenting, and Josiah Wedgwood perfected a way of coloring

the clay and producing "Jasperware," which looked like precious materials.  These were

made of clay, in molds, but of very high quality.  The "Portland Vase" was a copy in

clay of the most famous glass vase from ancient Rome.  He produced this and other

works in a variety of colors - pale blue, dark blue, buff, green, rose.  The

influence of ancient subjects was popular among the upper classes with the

collections of Greek and Roman art, and now everyone could have some.

It is known for its unglazed biscuit finish.

A pitcher in oxblood red Jasperware of Roman matrons offering sacrifices.  It gives the

appearance of glass cameo-ware (cutting away a dark background to reveal the white

figures), but actually it is made of clay.   The earliest Wedgwood pieces were made
of clay which had been colored.  Then, for a while, they used a white slip on the interior,
as this pitcher.  Later they returned to the colored bodies without white interiors again.

While aristocrats collected large classical vases and urns from Greece and Italy, the

potters of Staffordshire learned to throw ever larger clay pots and decorate them.

Wedgwood pieces reproduced marble and jasper forms of antiquity.

Portrait busts had been popular with aristocrats since ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, but

 the potters of Staffordshire learned to make fine statues of clay in molds.  The pure white bust

 above, which looks like it might have been carved from Parian marble in ancient Greece,

 is actually made of a white clay in Staffordshire by Copeland Pottery, but is known

 as "Parian Ware."  This is a "Bust of Princess Alexandra" in 1863.
These inexpensive busts were very popular.

"Parian Figures" usually took classical subject matter.  They were made by pouring

clay mixed with water into a mold, letting it dry, then firing it in a kiln.  The result

looks like carved white marble, but costs relatively little.

In the 1851, the Minton Pottery began making majolica ware for the Great Exhibition 
in London.  Ten years later, Wedgwood was began to produce "Victorian Majolica,"

 which is a lead-glazed earthenware pottery with molded surfaces and colorful
 translucent glazes.  It was based on Italian Renaissance  pottery.
This "Majolica Mermaid" is by the Minton Pottery.

Majolica pieces are often large bowls or urns made as much for display as for any

functional use.  They are always brilliantly colored with hand painted decoration.
The "Swan Urn" is by Minton.

This is a very large majolica urn glazed light blue with Roman motifs of masks and

swags and garlands of fruit.  This monumental "Bacchus Urn" is also by Minton.

But majolica could be used for many purposes, such as this large "Majolica Heron"
by Minton.  It is three feet high.

There were many potteries in and around Stoke, and they often were combined or

bought by another company.  The Doulton Pottery became one of the largest and most

successful.  The objects were generally made by men, working with the great kilns and

heavy loads of clay and coal, but the glazing and painting and decorations were done

by masses of women.  These figurines are a little less than a foot high and depict

women at the market or in various women-activities.   These are all Doulton figures;
 the "Balloon Lady" was especially popular.

Doulton also specialized in making heads or busts of famous people, politicians

and entertainers.

Doulton character figures continue in popularity to the present time.  Here we can see

Karl Marx, Elvis Presley, George Washington, and Marilyn Monroe,

an eclectic group to be sure.

Doulton made ceramic pieces of many kinds from high-fired stoneware. like the

vessel above decorated with a salt glaze, up to the very high-fired porcelain. These 
pieces were made at the Doulton factory in Lambeth, London.

Doulton salt-glazed stoneware depicting a simple agricultural scene of a young girl

tending to ponies.  These scenes, which many could easily recognize and identify with,

were very popular.  This has only a couple of colors and incised decoration.

But Doulton even made very large stoneware vessels in imitation of ancient Greek pottery.

"Kraters"like this were being collected by the wealthy of England and displayed in their

mansions.  Now ordinary Englishmen could also have "an ancient Greek krater" to show.

  This huge vase, over six feet tall, is of earthenware and was made for a maharajah
 in the English colonial empire, the Gaekwar of Baroda.   This was known as
 "Lambeth Faience," although it is not true faience.

A room in the museum filled with Royal Doulton porcelain / bone China  of various styles. 

 Porcelain had been discovered and used by the Chinese from the 4th century.  It became
 common in Europe and England only in the 18th century.  In the center

front is the "Diana Vase," which was made  for display and competition in Paris in 1900.  
The Great  Exposition of 1851 in London and the 1889 World's Fair in Paris (with Eiffel
 Tower) featured competitions by the new industries of European countries.

Royal Doulton Fairyland Pottery.  These large porcelain vases were specially made to

illustrate fairy tales, and featured beautiful girls / princesses.

Royal Doulton Bone China was made of porcelain clay, mixed with ground cattle bones (for

the calcium) to produce the finest, clearest, thinnest porcelain in the world.  Women in

factories painted the images. 

Ruskin Pottery was a special kind of pottery named after the British art critic, John Ruskin.

These pieces were made in imitation of Chinese monochrome pottery, which was

entering the British market and were extremely expensive.   These beautiful vessels sold

for a fraction of the price and were exceedingly well done.

Ruskin Pottery in blue and green, in imitation of Chinese monochrome ware of the

Ming Dynasty.

The Chinese potters had more colors than a modern paint store, and these pinkish

vessels range from "Peach Blossom" to "Oxblood."

Charles Vyse began as an apprentice in the Doulton factory.  Later, in 1919, he established
 his own business with his wife, Nell.   Each piece of fruit and each flower
was made as a separate piece and then attached.

A "Market Woman" and "The May Queen" by Charles and Nell Vyse.

The Moorcroft Pottery was formed by William Moorcroft in 1913.  He

developed a technique of brilliant hand-painted pottery created with the tube liner

technique.  They used something like a modern cake decorator,  but filled with

watery clay / a "slip" to outline their figures and create little "fields" almost like the

cloisonne technique of jewelers / metalsmiths.  They made tiles, such as these, to

decorate the home, as well as vases.

Moorcroft pieces.  The Moorcroft factory produced an extensive array of moderately-priced

domestic tableware items in addition to its famous tubelined, hand-painted art pottery.

Moorcroft's reputation was enhanced when Queen Mary, a keen collector of his works,

granted him a royal warrant in 1928.

Close-up of one of the Moorcroft vases showing the tube-lining technique.  William

Moorcroft first worked for the MacIntyre Pottery.  Early in his employment at Macintyre's,

William Moorcroft created designs for the company's Aurelian Ware range of high-Victorian

 pottery, which had transfer-printed and enamelled decoration in bold red, blue and gold colours. Introduced very soon afterwards, his art nouveau-influenced Florian Ware was decorated entirely

 by hand, with the design outlined in trailed slip using a technique known as tubelining.

Moorcroft pieces.  These  are from the modern Moorcroft factory in the 20th century.

A Moorcroft vase.  I like big, bold patterns and colors, and Moorcroft offers them.

A whole wall of Moorcroft pieces from the modern factory.

A special type of Royal Doulton porcelain that became very popular was "Rouge flambe,"

featuring a flaming red, highly glazed surface.  The images are often Oriental in feeling.

A "Rouge Flambe" vase.

"A "Rouge Flambe" vase with fighting eagles.

The museum also shows "Ardmore Pottery" from the former English colony of

South Africa.  Fee Halsted, a potter from Zimbabwe, has taught the Zulus of South Africa to

make and decorate pottery to earn money, and to use subject matter familiar to them,

rather than European subject matter.  The result is fascinating.  Here is a hippo, whose

rough hide is decorated with bold flowers and being ridden by a human couple,

while various animals cling to the sides.  It is about 18 inches long.

An Ardmore "Rhinoceros" being ridden by a number of people and also a

group of African animals.

"Madonna of the Jungle" was created by English  potter Michelle Coxon.

There are also examples of Spanish Lladro porcelain, a contemporary pottery company.

May of the pieces are large and complex, like this "Arion and the Harp," based on

a classic Greek myth.

"Princess Riding a Panther" is a three foot long piece of Spansh Lladro porcelain.

The "Arrival of Cinderella at the Palace" is an incredibly complex piece of Lladro

porcelain.  It is over four feet long and actually consists of hundreds of pieces of separately

fired and decorated Spanish porcelain.


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