Two-handled vase: C.55-2023

Titles

Two-handled vase

Maker(s)

Pottery: William De Morgan & Co.
Painter: Porter, Edward

Entities

• Two-handled vase
• vase

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware
• Art Pottery

Description

Earthenware, washed with white slip, and painted underglaze.

Urn shaped vase with two handles on the shoulder and everted neck, slip-coated and painted in blue, turquoise, two shades of green, and shades of purple underglaze. On the body, birds amongs sprays of flowers and foliage on a white ground; on the neck, turquoise triangles and green squiggles; interior of neck and handles turquoise, the latter with a longitudinal blue wavy line. Underside flat and unglazed.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Ian and Rita Smythe, 2023

Place(s) associated

• Merton Abbey ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2023) by Smythe, Ian and Rita

Dating

19th Century, Late#
Victoria I
Circa 1882 CE - 1888 CE

Note

William Frend De Morgan (1839-1917), now widely regarded as the most important ceramicist of the Arts & Crafts movement, also worked in stained glass and became a successful novelist. The son of a non-conformist mathematics professor, he became a close friend of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones and married the Pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn Pickering (1855-1919), in 1887. As a ceramicist, De Morgan was primarily a designer/decorator and chemist, working on bought-in blanks or pots thrown to his design. He experimented widely with techniques and glazes, re-discovering methods for making and applying lustres and the colours of Persian and Iznik pottery and using them for a range of complex fantasy designs featuring ships, birds, flora and animals. De Morgan was based at Merton Abbey (next door to Morris’s factory) from 1882-8.

School or Style

Arts and Crafts (movement)