Lustreware vase: C.29-1928

Titles

Lustreware vase

Maker(s)

Potter: Moore, Bernard

Entities

• Vase
• jar

Categories

• Earthenware
• Lustreware
• Art Pottery

Description

Earthenware vase, with purple lustre and deep red glazes. A double gourd shape with a narrow round opening at the top, standing on a small foot-ring. The exterior is completely covered with a purple, blue and gold-coloured lustrous glaze, which deepens and lightens over the surface. The interior and underside are covered with a deep red glaze.

Notes

History note: Bought from Bernard Moore at Wolfe Street, Stoke-on-Trent, on 24 March 1920, by Dr Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge. Price three guineas (£3 and 3 shillings).

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L.Glaisher Bequest, 1928

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

20th Century, Early
Circa 1910 CE - 1920 CE

Note

Bernard Moore (1850-1935), with his brother Samuel (c.1852-1890), took over the family pottery at Longton in 1867. Moore Bros. made good, marketable china for domestic use and produced innovative cloisonné enamels and turquoise and ruby glazes inspired by Persian, Japanese and Chinese wares. Bernard Moore travelled widely, exhibiting and winning medals for the firm in Australia and the United States. In 1905 he sold the business and took a few employees with him to Wolfe Street, Stoke-on-Trent, where he concentrated on lustres and experimental glazes, notably copper-red ‘rouge flambé’ (or ‘sang de boeuf’) and crystalline glazes. Blanks were supplied by the larger factories in the area, to Moore’s design, and artists employed as decorators were given scope for their own designs. Moore’s main income, however, came as consultant to many firms (including Wedgwood and Doulton), advising on body composition, glazing recipes and firing temperatures, and this role continued into the 1930s. In later years Moore also became a writer on pottery science and a passionate public advocate on trade and health issues, including the elimination of silicosis and the ban on lead glazes.

The double gourd shape was often used by Moore, although the glaze on this example seems unusual. It is a late example, as Wolfe Street production diminished after 1915. The body appears to be earthenware, but Moore worked with a wide variety of bodies, including also porcelaneous stoneware, porcelain and bone china. Moore’s deep glaze colours arise from a metal base reduction fired in a gas-fired muffle kiln.

School or Style

Art Pottery