Small globular vessel: C.9-2017

Titles

Small globular vessel

Maker(s)

Potter: Mommens, Ursula

Entities

• Vase
• two-handled vase

Categories

• Stoneware
• Studio Ceramics

Description

Stoneware, thrown, with dark brown tenmoko glaze

Small, two handled globular vase with narrow bottle neck. The two small loop handles sit high on the shoulder and curl up to the top of the neck, which is slightly everted. The surface outside and inside the neck is slightly ridged from the throwing. The surface is coated in a rich brown tenmoko (temmoku) glaze, thinly applied around the rims and in one ‘fingerprint’ patch, where the colour is terracotta. The sides of the base have been turned and resist coated, leaving a thin, unglazed band. The underside is flat and undecorated.

Notes

History note: Bequeathed by David Hall, former Deputy Librarian to the University Library.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by David Hall

Place(s) associated

• Newhaven ⪼ Sussex ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2017-01-23) by Hall, David

Dating

20th Century, Late#
21st Century, Early
Circa 1950 CE - Circa 2010 CE

Note

Ursula Mommens (née Darwin,1908-2010), born in Cambridge, was a great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin and a descendant of Josiah Wedgwood; at school she learned music from Gustav Holst. Inspired by a pottery demonstration at the Ideal Home Exhibition, she studied first with Dora Billington at the Central School of Art and Design and then with William Staite Murray at the Royal College of Art before establishing her own pottery in Kent. In 1935 she moved to London, but after her pottery there was destroyed by wartime bombing she worked with Michael Cardew at both Winchcombe and Wenford Bridge. She believed in making pots that people could use. Her early work was vibrantly coloured earthenware; later she worked sometimes in porcelain but mainly stoneware, using iron and wood ash glazes, sometimes with incised or painted foliate or fish motifs. Mommens, who lived to the age of 101, was married to the artist and poet Julian Trevelyan RA from 1935-50 and the sculptor Norman Mommens, c.1952-62.