Boat Race Day Goblet: AAL.10-2021

Awaiting location update

Titles

Boat Race Day Goblet

Maker(s)

Manufacturer: Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd
Designer: Ravilious, Eric William

Entities

Goblet

Description

Creamware (Queensware) goblet printed underglaze in black and hand-painted in two shades of blue, yellow, and pink enamels with two views of stages of the Boat Race.

Creamware, printed underglaze in black, glazed, and hand-painted with pale blue, royal blue, yellow, and pink enamels. Large, circular bowl with deep curved sides on a narrow stem, flaring to a wider foot. There are two views of the Boat Race on the exterior, one showing spectators in a flag-bedecked boat beside a bridge, under which the smaller boats pass and and another showing a steamship, with swans and reeds on the bank in the foreground, and spectators visible in the background. Inside the bowl is a smaller graphic emblem of a mermaid in a boat, under the yellow-rayed sun in a blue sky, surrounded by four sets of oars (sixteen in total). The colours are used sparingly to highlight features of the images.

Legal notes

Lent by the Keatley Trust

Place(s) associated

Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Lent (2021-12-01) by Keatley Trust

Dating

20th Century#
Circa 1938 - 1940

Note

Eric Ravilious (1903-42) studied engraving, illustration and colour printing at the Royal College of Art and by 1926-28 was exhibiting watercolours, producing book illustrations and commissioned to paint murals. In 1930 he married Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood (1908-1951) also a noted artist and engraver. From around 1936, he became one of Wedgwood’s most prolific freelance designers, although many of his designs were not produced in quantity until after World War II, during which he was killed while serving as a war artist with the Royal Marines. Wedgwood had revived the use of engraved designs in the mid 1930s – a mode of decoration which allowed the artist’s own work and ‘hand-writing’ to be reproduced in a factory setting, and well suited to Ravilious’ style. The Fitzwilliam Museum also holds a war-time watercolour by Ravilious, two books with his engravings and a number of his prints, and a book of Tirzah Ravilious’ engravings. ‘Boat Race Day’ was designed in 1938, and appeared on a bowl, cup and stand until around 1940. Earlier designs were engraved at the factory from Ravilious’ drawings, but the ‘Boat Race’ images were lithographs drawn by Ravilious himself for direct application to the ware. The design was not among Ravilious designs produced again in the early 1950s, but a limited edition of 200 ‘Boat Race Day’ bowls was re-issued in 1975, with a special backstamp.