The same acid writer is about to find himself in a minority as a new exhibition elevates Dresser to one of the new darlings of the day

Opening at the Victoria & Albert Museum next Thursday (Sept 9) and running until December 5 is the first UK retrospective on Dresser, an exhibition which marks the centenary of his death.

The whole spectrum of his work, including metalwork, furniture, ceramics and textiles, from his early more decorative designs to his later streamlined minimalist work will be on show.

Remember how Clarice Cliff’s gaudy Bizarre pottery was one derided by the purists? Then the first Clarice Cliff exhibition at Brighton wowed visitors in 1972 and today she is lauded as one of the most influential ceramics artists of the 20th Century.

Watch this space, as they say.

Christopher Dresser was among a handful of young designers who dared to be different. By 1899, he was hailed in the pages of The Studio – the bible of Victorian and Edwardian craftsmen artists – as “perhaps the greatest of commercial designers, imposing his fantasy and invention upon the ordinary output of British industry”.

He was ahead of his time. When Britain was at its zenith during the Victorian period, good taste and design were forfeited for the sake of innovation and mass-production.

For example, it has been estimated that in the six decades of Queen Victoria’s reign, more furniture was produced than in all the previous centuries put together.

Aesthetic judgment became subservient to efficient manufacture, with the result that design took on a new conservatism.

The manufacturer had no reason to go to the expense of commissioning new designs while his market remained aesthetically uncommitted.

Dresser turned that on its head, using mass-production methods to make the simplest of domestic objects with a high degree of sophistication in what was the first hint at modernism and functionalism.

He could turn his hand to designing almost anything for the home from wallpaper to toast racks. Even cast iron garden chairs and hat stands can be found with the Dresser touch of distinction.

Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) the son of a tax collector was born in Glasgow in the same year as William Morris but moved to London in 1847 having won a scholarship at the exceptionally early age of 13 to study at the Government School of Design at Somerset House.

Following a system of art education set up to train designers for industry, Dresser studied both design and botany and won numerous medals and prizes.

He subsequently gained a doctorate at the University of Jena in Thuringia, Germany, and at 18, he became a lecturer in botany at the Department of Science and Art in South Kensington.

In 1854, he married his wife, Thirza Perry, of Madeley, Shropshire, whose father was a missionary with the City of London Mission. The couple had 13 children.

These early years were his most formative and it was then that he came under the influence of another designer, Owen Jones (1809-1874) publisher of the important manual Grammar of Ornament.

This compendium of historic ornament, published in 1856, contained 37 “Propositions” – rules of design which were to remain a guiding factor for Dresser throughout his career.

Proposition 8 was that “all ornament should be based on geometric construction” while Proposition 13 – ironically – decried the use of flowers in ornament other than “conventional representations founded upon them sufficiently suggestive to convey the intended image to the mind”.

Dresser’s first published work was Plate XCV111 in Jones’ Grammar of Ornament, illustrating a geometric arrangement of flowers. There followed many other articles, books and lecture tours on the relationship of botany and design.

Dresser published his own design book, The Art of Decorative Design in 1862 and in 1867, he visited Japan as official representative of the British government, exchanging the best examples of European design for their Japanese equivalents.

At the same time he also collected Japanese works of art on behalf of Tiffany’s in New York. He published a lengthy account of his visit in 1882 under the titled “Japan, its Architecture, Art and Art Manufacturers” and clearly, his visit was a huge influence on his style.

In 1879, he formed a partnership with Charles Holmes of Bradford to import Oriental wares to England and the pair opened a shop in a short-lived venture selling Japanese goods. The experience added yet another dimension to Dresser’s designs.

At the same time, Dresser was working extensively as a freelance designer for Minton and Wedgwood in the Staffordshire Potteries and designing carpets for Brinton and Lewis.

In 1879, he initiated the founding of the Linthorpe Art Pottery, acting as art superintendent for the Middlesborough-based firm owned by businessman John Harrison. Dresser designed most of the ceramics produced there and they bear his impressed facsimile signature.

His association with the company ceased in 1882, although production of his designs continued until its collapse in 1889. As a result, examples of Dresser-designed Linthorpe are naturally scarce today after just 10 years of production and consequently change hands for large sums.

Another minor pottery to benefit from the Dresser influence was that run by William Ault at Swadlincote, near Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

Between 1892 and 1896, Dresser designed a number of fantasy vases with long necks, gourd shapes and goat’s head handles. Production continued after Dresser’s death in 1904, but examples are still rare.

By now Dresser had established a studio for design work in all media, working from 1882 in Sutton, Surrey, and from 1889 in Barnes in London. There, he worked on numerous projects for a bewildering variety of customers.

From about 1885 onwards, for example, he produced designs for Clutha Glass, manufactured by James Couper and Sons in Glasgow. The flowing bubbled and streaked glass is acid etched with the words “Clutha designed by C.D. registered”.

Clutha is an old Scottish word meaning “cloudy” and Dresser stated that “glass has a molten state in which it can be blown into the most beautiful shapes … this process is the work of but a few seconds”.

Working to his designs, Couper’s glass blowers created sensual elongated shapes usually in a pale green glass “clouded” with internal swirls of milky glass of a quality that was comparable with the best that French glassmakers could make.

The important Coalbrookdale ironworks at Madeley, the Shropshire home of Dresser’s wife, probably had the benefit of the master’s designs from as early as 1871 when a table and hat stand was shown in the London International Exhibition.

Production of a wide range of Dresser ironwork designs continued for many years, much to the delight of today’s collectors looking for classy garden furniture.

Designs of metalwork of a more delicate nature were for silver and silver plate for a variety of smiths and manufacturers.

They are perhaps his most revolutionary and well ahead of their time. Hukin and Heath made several different types of elegant claret and water jugs, cruets, teapots (including the Sputnik one) and other tableware, as did Sheffield firm James Dixon and Sons and Birmingham-based Elkington and Co.

Last month an electroplated teapot made in 1879, one of only six known, sold for a record £94,850.

Once seen, a toast rack designed by Christopher Dresser is never forgotten. They are made from angular V-shaped sections formed by rods and joined by small spheres. In silver plate, they are worth £400-600.

At the height of his career, Dresser employed 20 or more studio assistants, including J. Moyr Smith and Archibald Knox who were subsequently to become important designers in their own right, going on to play major roles in shaping design in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show: A silver-plated teapot with ebonized wood handle made by James Dixon & Sons. Sheffield in about 1878 © The British Museum

A silver-plated toast rack by James Dixon & Sons Sheffield, in about 1879. © 2001 Michael Whiteway

A silver-plated decanter made by Hukin & Heath Birmingham, England, 1879 © 2001 Michael Whiteway

The picture of Christopher Dresser is © Linnean Society

They were made in a glassworks in Perthshire and such is the universal appeal of antiques and collectables, I felt I needed no excuse to stay north of the border with this week’s column.

In the event, telephone buyers from Scotland took three pieces, a Hampshire collector had travelled to the sale to buy two, while the remainder was shared between three local buyers.

The most valuable piece was a circular fruit bowl in purple, shading to green and amber with aventurine flecks, which sold for £280, more than twice the top estimate.

Aventurine is the name given to opaque or semi-translucent glass flecked with small metallic particles, which is a particularly attractive feature to much of the most desirable pieces.

These beautiful and remarkable creations are examples of Monart glass made at the Moncrieff glassworks in Perth between 1924 and 1961 by a Spanish glassworker named Salvador Ysart.

Today, they are highly sought after by a relatively small but well-informed group of collectors who prize anything produced by the factory and pay considerable sums for the privilege of taking a piece home.

This is rightly so, in my opinion, for this is glassware that will never be produced again.

However, to the uninitiated, pieces seen in isolation look like so many examples of Sixties kitsch and not everyone appreciates their gaudy colours and flashy styles.

See a group of the pieces properly lit and displayed and understand more readily the skill involved in making them, and their significance becomes increasingly apparent.

Salvador Ysart was born in Barcelona, the son of a glassmaker, although oddly enough, his first job was in a bakery.

However, it was not work he enjoyed, and he soon quit and followed in his father’s footsteps.

At around the turn of the century, the champion of Art Nouveau design, Emile Gallé, established the School of Nancy in France and Ysart was one of many artist craftsmen who left their native land to join workers in the school in 1909.

He subsequently worked for a number of glassmakers around Paris until 1915, when he was recruited to move to Scotland to help the British war effort making such things as laboratory glass and light bulbs.

He and his wife had four sons: Paul, Augustine, Vincent and Antoine who joined their father as apprentices, working first in Edinburgh and then Glasgow until 1922, when they were recruited by John Moncrieff, proprietor of the glassworks of the same name in Perth.

The company was primarily involved in manufacturing industrial and laboratory glass, but Salvador’s interests lay more in decorative objects that he had been producing for Gallé at Nancy.

Tradition has it that in 1923, he made a vase as a raffle prize for his local church which was seen by Moncrieff’s wife, Isobel, who saw its commercial potential.

Herself a talented artist and well-connected in London, she persuaded her husband to invest in the new product line and Monart glass — combining the first syllable of the company’s name with the last syllable of Salvador’s surname — was born.

Production began the following year but was limited to fulfilling orders from leading department stores including Liberty’s of London, the Ysart family working only in their spare time on the project.

Nevertheless, by the early 1930s Monart pattern books were crammed with all manner of glassware ranging from vases and bowls to ink bottles and table lamps.

The glass proved to be a great success and production continued until 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War which necessarily halted output to concentrate on the war effort.

What made Monart glass special was not necessarily the shapes but the vibrant colours in which it was made, much of its inspired by Isobel Moncrieff.

The method of manufacture was complex. It involved mixing coloured glass granules or canes, supplied from Germany, with clear glass which was shaped and moulded and then covered with a layer of clear glass.

Adding crushed charcoal to the mix created air bubbles and gold powder, aventurine, metallic foil or mica flakes were added to give pieces a unique sparkle.

Ironically, the local Woolworth’s was one source of the silver in the form of glitter, but only at Christmas time, when it was used as tree decoration!

Salvador and his sons Vincent and Augustine left the company in 1946 and set up their own business, called Ysart Brothers Glass, producing glass under the name “Vasart”.

By 1949, Vasart was enjoying some success, but the death of both Salvador and Augustine left Vincent to carry on alone and production was in decline by 1956.

Paul Ysart, Salvador’s oldest son, became interested in paperweights and went on to become one of the most important manufacturers of the 1930s.

He remained at Moncrieff’s and restarted Monart production in 1945 but on a much reduced scale. Paul left Moncrieff’s in 1961, joining in Caithness Glass two years later.

It is virtually impossible to tell whether Monart glass dates from before or after the war. Somewhat in contrast to what one might expect, colours were much more subdued, probably because of supply difficulties from post-war Germany.

Even identifying a piece is Monart is problematic. The Vasart glass made by Ysart Brothers was made to compete and is therefore very similar, although this is generally etched with the signature Vasart in script on the base.

Generally speaking, Monart glass is not signed but it has a distinctive pontil mark — made at the time the piece was handblown — which is ground down and polished to a smooth disk surrounded by a smooth circle.

The pontil mark on Vasart glass was usually only ground off to remove sharp surfaces.

Before it left the factory, Monart glass was given a sticky paper label applied to the pontil mark although, of course, they were often lost with the passage of time.

Monart has also been faked over the years. The solution is based on experience. Handle pieces which are known to be authentic and compare them with others that are known either to be wrong or made by competing factories. With time, it’ll become obvious.

And one other tip: Monart and similar pieces made from several layers of glass are known to shatter if exposed to strong sunlight which causes the layers to expand and contract to different degrees. So keep it off the window ledge!

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show a selection of Monart glass showing the range of colours and styles available. The table light is particularly sough after and has an auction value £300-500. Other pieces in the pictures can be had for £100-300

It surprised even the auctioneers, who were expecting winning bids of around £10,000, not a new world record auction price. Interestingly enough, I once watched one sell for £90. Who told you antiques weren’t a good investment?

That said, you should probably not buy this stuff to make money.

Fashion being what it is, the gaudy, cabbage rose-bedecked pottery made from the late 19th century onwards at the Fife Pottery in the Gallatown district of Kirkcaldy is most definitely an acquired taste.

Buy it by all means, but only if you love it. There is no guarantee the price spiral it has enjoyed in recent years can continue.

The pottery is known as Wemyss Ware (say it like Weems) and the late Queen Mother was among a great number of collectors whose eagerness to own examples of it sent prices skyward.

There was a time when little was known about Wemyss Ware but the fact that there are a handful of original Fife Pottery employees still alive has aided research and fuelled interest yet higher.

The Fife Pottery was established in 1817, largely with the aid of a substantial loan from a Glasgow bank.

Output was simple domestic pottery for the home market that had very little to commend it, apart, perhaps, from the fact that it was cheap.

Cheap (and better) pottery could be obtained from a hundred other sources, though, and saddled with crippling interest charges on the bank loan, the business went bankrupt after only 10 years.

The pottery changed hands in 1827, the new owner taking on the debts with his acquisition and it was not until 58 years later that the original loan was repaid.

The turnaround was achieved by Robert Heron, grandson of the new owner, who steered the company away from cheap dross for the domestic market, towards more stylish and sophisticated wares decorated by hand rather than uninspiring transfer printing.

He produced teapots, cheese dishes, milk jugs and other tableware intended for exactly the same market as before, but at prices that provided greater profit margins and the chance to extend the product range.

Wemyss Ware was Heron’s inspiration. Early in the 1880s, he imported Bohemian immigrant ceramic painters to Kirkcaldy, enticing them to the cold and bleak Highlands with handsome salaries.

Few stayed long, with the exception of one Karel Nekola, a gifted ceramic artist with a vivid talent and an exceptional creative talent.

Fortunately for Heron, Nekola took a shine to his boss’s cook and the couple married and settled in the area.

Nekola’s unique painting skills made their mark in the factory’s decorating shop immediately and soon, the local decorators working there began to follow his style.

Outsize flowers, fruit and farmyard animals all painted in the strongest colours began to appear on everything produced by the factory, to be snapped up by an eager public keen to own something new and different.

Meanwhile, Heron began to take stock of the product range, axing anything that was difficult or costly to produce.

Instead, he concentrated on simple bedroom and domestic ware such as inkwells, candlesticks, jug and basin sets, early morning tea sets, biscuit and jam jars.

It is exactly these objects that today’s collectors covet most and prices have risen many fold over the last decade or so.

Unfortunately, what Heron failed to correct was the ability to successfully fuse brilliant coloured glazes on to hard-fired earthenware.

The high temperatures required for tough earthenware pots caused the underglaze colours to burn and fade.

Heron responded in the only way he knew how: by reducing the heat and firing the Wemyss Ware in the coldest areas of the kilns.

This resulted in pottery with an underfired, easily damaged body that was simply unable to stand up to the rigours of domestic life.

It was a risk calculated to be offset by the appeal of the strong, fresh colours and designs Nekola and his fellow painters could achieve in the decorating shop.

This has proved to be a double-edged sword for today’s collectors.

Pieces survive with colours still as brilliant as the day they were potted. However damage such as rim chips, broken handles and hairline cracks is rife, and restoration is both costly and tricky.

Consequently, prices for perfect examples of Wemyss have spiralled faster and higher than they might if the ware had been made in harder, stronger body that might have permitted more pieces to survive intact.

Robert Heron died in 1907. Wemyss Ware had its heyday from about 1885-1914, the Great War and increased sophistication among customers sounding its twin death knells.

Improved plumbing meant jugs and bowls were no longer needed in bedrooms; electricity killed off the need for candlesticks in every room and servants to carrying up the morning tea became a thing of the past.

Coupled to this was the dawning of the Art Deco era in which pretty Wemyss had no place, while Wemyss could not compete with a flood of cheap china imported from overseas.

The General Strike of 1926 marked the beginning of the end for the Fife Pottery which finally closed in 1930.

Renewed interest in antiques and collecting over the last 20 or so years has seen a staggering rise in the value of Wemyss Ware.

There was a time when pieces could be picked up in jumble sales and junk shops for a few shillings apiece.

Nowadays, international fine art auctioneers stage sales devoted solely to the ware and a number of dealers specialise in it to the exclusion of everything else.

And the more outrageous the designs and colour schemes, the more valuable the pieces become.

The sleeping pig decorated with roses, shamrock or clover leaves, is arguably the rarest and, for well-heeled, collectors most desirable of all Wemyss ware pieces.

She was produced for the nursery, sometimes with a slot in her back as a money box, and bigger ones as doorstops, while others were made to order and personalised with a child’s name and birthdate.

More scarce are sleeping piglets intended as paper weights, while families of cats, spotted, tabby or others up to their necks in the same cabbage roses that decorate other Wemyss pots are also highly sought after.

Wemyss Ware was named after the nearby cliff top castle home of the Wemyss family. It is rare today owing to its extreme fragility, the result of being fired at extremely low temperatures. This was necessary to produce a ‘biscuit’ body that would absorb the vibrant colours applied by the most delicate of brush strokes. After decoration, it was dipped into soft lead glaze and fired again, also at low temperatures, to further enhance the brilliant colours.

antiques@chris-prouldove.co.uk

Pictures show:

The rare early 20th century sleeping pigs, one decorated with cabbage roses, the other with two apples on a branch, which each sold for a world record £34,800.

When the Wemyss factory closed in 1930, the rights and moulds were purchased by the Bovey Tracey Pottery in Devon who employed Nekola’s son, Joseph, to continue to paint traditional Wemyss Ware until his death from diabetes in 1952. This rare seated cat, with its manic grin and green glass eyes, was painted by Joe Nekola and is worth £2,500-3,500

A trio of Wemyss bowls and jugs dating from the turn of the century and each worth around £1,000 (Photos: Sotheby’s)