Click here to see a slideshow of the Ca Mau porcelain

Brand new “antiques” they might be, but no matter. Ironically enough, in the same street was a tailor who made the Business Manager (Mrs P) a silk dress. While she was being measured up and fitted out, I was taken to a backroom to see the owner’s collection of real Vietnamese antiques.

The tailor’s wife explained that the pottery had been brought to the shop by fishermen who

often pulled in their nets and found stuff in them dredged up from the seabed. Interestingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, they were decorated with designs similar to our fantastical fishes and dragons.

I could take my pick, pay the necessary and no one would trouble me at customs, I was reliably informed, specially if I hid the piece away in my luggage wrapped in a dirty shirt.

In true journalistic style, I made my excuses and left. Were in not for our fish and dragon pots, I’d be at Shrewsbury, Shropshire auctioneers Halls next week bidding for some of the porcelain pictured here.

It is what’s left of a massive consignment of 18th century export porcelain salvaged from the Ca Mau, a Chinese junk which sunk off the Vietnam coast in 1725.

Following two successful auctions of the stuff last year, Halls are hoping for similar enthusiasm from collectors when another 1,000 pieces go under the hammer.

The first part of the collection, sent for sale by a Staffordshire collector, sold for £16,000 in March. In December, the second consignment of 440 pieces sold for £7,500., Assuming that demand might be becoming satiated, there could be some bargains this time.

Halls fine art director Jeremy Lamond, the specialist in charge of the sale, told me that the Ca Mau was engulfed by an intense fire while sailing 90 miles south of Canton on its way to the Malaysian archipelago.

The fire, burning at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, may have started in the kitchen as cast iron cooking pots were found welded together.

The heat was so intense that it fused together some pieces of its precious cargo.

The junk lay undisturbed for more than 280 years until, in 1998, two Vietnamese fishermen snagged their nets on some of the porcelain and began to haul it from the deep.

Before the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information stepped in, the fishermen had managed to bring to the surface over 30,000 pieces.

In 2005, the Vietnamese government decided to sell a proportion of the 130,000 pieces that had been salvaged and sent 76,000 to auction at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam.

The sale over three days in January 2007 saw the Ca Mau finally unload its cargo to an eager market in the West after a gap of two centuries.

“Shipwreck porcelains are a fascinating subject and shed much light on history, human and marine archaeology and commerce,” Mr Lamond said.

“They represent in their purest form a time capsule, sealing in the fashion of the day represented by the most popular shapes and designs.”

After the discovery of the Nanking Cargo by Michael Hatcher in the 1980s, there have been many shipwreck porcelain sales at auction including Vung Tau, Tek Sing, and Diana.

The number of pieces offered have been breathtaking, usually 100,000 or more per sale and reflect the size of these cargoes in their day and the demand for such wares throughout South East Asia and Europe.

“To the student of porcelain, shipwreck artefacts present a unique window on the past. They are obviously not fakes or reproductions and such pieces are ideal for learning by handling,” Mr Lamond said.

“If a shipwreck has been thoroughly excavated, then dating is usually quite precise and it would not be difficult for a keen collector to pick up wares from shipwreck porcelains offered on the current market from ships dating from the Song and pre-Ming dynasties right through to the 19th century! “Arranged in chronological order, this would give the scholar a snapshot of Chinese taste and design throughout the centuries for as little as a few hundred pounds.”

The Chinese export trade to Europe in blue and white porcelain tea wares reached its zenith in the 18th century and catered for a burgeoning middle class demand for durable and attractive blue and white porcelain tableware.

In the early 18th century, when the Ca Mau sank, the principal companies dealing in the export trade were the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the East India Company of London.

Although the Ca Mau was destined for Batavia, the major part of its cargo was to be shipped on to the Netherlands and some of the porcelains were painted to Dutch taste with churches and traditional European scenes in the so-called Scheveningen design.

A great deal of the Ca Mau cargo consisted of tea bowls, saucers and saucer dishes for the mass market painted in cobalt blue against a white porcelain ground which are ideal for collectors, being easy to display, relatively inexpensive and often utilising a myriad of different patterns.

The Halls sale is next Wednesday March 11 with viewing from Saturday Mar 7. Estimates start from £120 for 30 saucers. Further information from Halls on 01743 284777.

Click here to see a Wedgwood wonderland

     Venture capitalists circle over the Barlaston works, enticed by Receivers who will be the only winners in the game, while a talented workforce of Staffordshire potters nervously awaits its fate.
    Founded by the great Josiah in 1759, Wedgwood once produced wares that everyone wanted to buy from Catherine the Great to people like my parents who just wanted a smart Sunday best teaset. Not any more it seems.
    The youngest of 12 children, Josiah was born at his parents’ pottery in Burslem. He started school at the age of six, but was forced to leave on his father’s death at nine.
    He then worked then for five years as apprentice in the family pot bank, but was then

struck down by smallpox. It was a cruel blow which affected his legs – his right one had to be amputated – making him unable to operate a potter’s wheel.
    Cast adrift by his family – his eldest brother refused to take him into partnership – he worked for two years for another potter before he met and, in 1754, entered into partnership with one of the most eminent potters of the day, Thomas Whieldon.
    Robbed of a career as a potter, Wedgwood concentrated on developing new ceramic bodies and glazes and by the time the Whieldon partnership expired in 1759, Wedgwood had invented several new products. He started his own business back in Burslem and began to prosper.
     In 1762, he met Thomas Bentley, a successful Liverpool merchant with a wide and cultivated taste who had the right social contacts and a knowledge of the arts that gave him an eye for design.
    Wedgwood was quick to recognise the inspiration that Bentley offered and the two formed a partnership that lasted from 1768 until Bentley’s death in 1780.
    It was at this time that collectors became interested in the classical antiquities being discovered in Etruscan tombs and Wedgwood and Bentley produced copies, including their so-called Etruscan vases.
    When they opened their new works in 1769, they called it Etruria after the district in central Italy where the ancient Etruscans had lived.
    A pioneer of the Industrial Revolution and the canal system – he wanted a cheap and reliable means to transport his wares to Liverpool – a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur businessman, anti-slavery campaigner, aesthete and radical, Josiah is regarded as the father of English potters.
    Wedgwood became a public company in 1967 (some say that’s when the decline started) and it was taken over 19 years later by Warterford Glass. What happens next is anyone’s guess but what remains a constant is the raft of highly collectable pottery.
    Early pieces of Wedgwood and Bentley black basaltes busts and vases still turn up at auction, while the Fairyland Lustre designed by Daisy Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) is highly sought after.
       Interestingly Daisy’s innovative designs helped the company revive its reputation in the harsh years of the first quarter of the 20th century, as did the work of such distinguished artists as Keith Murray (1892-1981), John Skeaping (1901-1980), Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) and Arnold Machin (1911-1999).
       Another constant, where all of the company’s rarest treasures can be seen, is the futuristic new £10.5 million Wedgwood Museum which opened last October.
    Built after eight years of international fund-raising and supported by a £5.9 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant, the museum is a registered charitable trust and thankfully entirely independent from the company.
    Situated at the Wedgwood factory site at Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent (the company moved there in 1939) the museum exhibits include everything from Josiah’s experimental trials, designs and products from throughout the 18th century to the present day totalling about 6,000 artefacts, some never seen by the public before.
       A collection of 75,000 original manuscripts detailing everything from international trade, social history, the anti-slavery campaign and the building of Britain’s canal system , and 10,000 experimental pieces from the Wedgwood archives are also available for examination, while important original paintings by artists Joshua Reynolds and George Stubbs portray Josiah and his family. 
     A unique interactive  "magic carpet ride" takes visitors on an aerial tour around Wedgwood’s original Etruria factory, now demolished, and specially built bottle ovens house display areas of 18th century wares.
    The museum is open from 9am to 5pm (10am at weekends) and admission costs £6 (concession £5) or in groups £5 (concession £4.50). For further information, go to www.wedgwoodmuseum.org.uk or telephone 01782 371900.

Pictures show, from top: A portrait of Josiah Wedgwood I (1730-95) in enamels on a Wedgwood ceramic plaque made in 1780

The Portland Vase a Black Jasper copy of the famous Roman cameo glass vase once owned by the Duchess of Portland.  It took Josiah over three years of experiments and trials before the first perfect copy was made in October 1789.  They are considered amongst the greatest technical achievements of the potter’s art

The Apotheosis of Homer vase in Blue Jasper, the bas relief design by John Flaxman Junior.  Josiah Wedgwood declared this to be, ‘The finest and most perfect I have ever made’, c.1786.

Left: Fairyland lustre was the name given by Daisy Makeig-Jones to her range of designs based on exotic fairy stories where vivacious imps and fairies are seen in mystical landscapes.  The ware was made by Wedgwood from 1915 until 1931, though after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, demand declined dramatically. This bowl dates from about 1920.

Pictures courtesy of the Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent.

THERE were gasps of amazement … and self-satisfied smiles from those in the know. Small, nondescript Moorcroft pairs of vases decorated with the ubiquitous pansies sell for around £200 in local auctions, £300 if you’re lucky and dealers in the room want stock.

Click here for a Moorcroft mystery tour

So how come the two illustrated here fetched £2,400? After all, they are nondescript, yes?

Actually, not a bit of it. They might only measure a mere six centimetres in height, but these little rarities pack a punch above their weight.

The secret is in the background on which the pansies are painted. Instead of the usual deep

blue, the ground used for these two little chaps was a muddy green and creamy white.

No, customers didn’t like them either. Production was short-lived and the idea scrapped in favour of the more popular blue.

No one knows how many of the pieces were made and found their way into the shops. But the result was that Moorcroft, no doubt unwittingly, had made something that future collectors would covet.

Such is the case with the other Moorcroft pieces illustrated here, except these are even more rare.

The jardinière is decorated with fruit and vines and although normally seen in a distinctive Moorcroft blue colourway, this is a unique test piece in a flambé glaze.

However, this was another experiment considered less than satisfactory by factory bosses and the idea was abandoned. But instead of the pot being scrapped, the lady involved in its manufacture more than 30 years ago asked if she could keep it.

The two plates are perhaps even more fascinating. Again unique, they were used in the Moorcroft factory to demonstrate the art of a technique called tube-lining to young pupil apprentices.

The plates were fired with the subsequent decorative painting omitted so that the technique could be better understood.

Interestingly, the plates are also notable for their fine and delicate tube-lining associated with older Moorcroft and not seen on the modern productions.

The latter have heavier tube-lining to stop the paint spilling over onto other areas of the piece. The plates each have the impressed mark ‘Potters to HM. The Queen’, which dates them to around the 1940s.

Normally, they would also have been scrapped after use, but again they were saved by the same lady, no doubt as a reminder of the days when she taught her skills to the young Moorcroft apprentices.

The ceramic term tube-lining is not unlike the process of piping decoration on to an iced cake. But the simplicity of the technique and the way it is explained, belies the enormity of the task.

So skilled were these women at the art of tube-lining that dismissing it as simple culinary chore is an insult to their ability.

There is, however, ground common to the two techniques. Like icing, the liquid clay, or slip as it is termed, is held in a small bag and applied to the object being decorated by being squeezed through a nozzle. The similarities end there, however.

The nozzle, in fact, was a tiny glass tube. It was made to the correct diameter by the girls themselves, by heating and stretching it over a burner.

Tube-lining was introduced in the Potteries in 1895 and was used for a relatively short time, notably, by Wedgwood, Minton and Moorcroft. However, it died out in the 1950s because it was so time-consuming and, therefore, costly.

Moorcroft is one of the few companies to continue the practice today. When applied to a pot, it produced a thin, raised line, usually in clay of contrasting colour to the rest of the pot, which followed the outlines of patterns or pictures to be used in the decoration of the piece.

This formed a frame into which, after firing, enamel colouring could be worked subsequently without the colours running together.   

Patterns were applied occasionally freehand, the tube-liner either working to sketched designs or from a model made previously by the designer.

Charlotte Rhead, for example, had been taught the skill by her father, the great Frederick Rhead, and was extremely accomplished.

Alternatively, either the designer or the tube-liner would pencil the design on to the actual pot to be decorated or on to tracing paper from whence it would be transferred to the pot using a pounce.

This latter technique involved perforating the paper with dozens of tiny pin holes along the outline of the shape to be tubed. The paper was then dampened and smoothed on to the piece to be decorated.

With a cloth or pad dipped in soot – the pounce – repeated dabbing forced traces of soot through the holes so that, when the paper was removed, a series of dots were left where the pin holes had been for the tube-liner to follow. The soot was burnt away during subsequent firing.

In the 1930s, girls started working in pot banks as 13 and 14 year-olds. Those who showed aptitude progressed to become tube-liners only a few years later.

They were important artists in their own right and some were even permitted to sign their work with their own mark.    Interestingly, pieces bearing the Charlotte Rhead signature, so eagerly snapped up by today’s collectors over those that are unmarked, were probably signed not by her but with a facsimile by the tube liner who decorated them.

This is a pity. Such was the skill and dexterity of the tube-liners, that their work deserves to be collected in its own right.

YOU’VE SEEN them at countless car boot sales, and you’ve been embarrassed when you’ve  asked the stallholder how much he wants for the naff set of NatWest piggy banks, the SylvaC bunnies or the preserve pots shaped like onions modelled with faces on the sides.

Click here for a 20th Century Ceramics slideshow

But it’s okay. Help is at hand in the shape of the latest glossy hardback to come from the stable of the Antique Collectors’ Club, entitled "Starting to Collect 20th Century Ceramics". Author Andrew Casey is an acknowledged expert on the subject and his book has been produced specially with the novice collector in mind.

From the Lord of the Rings figures from the Middle Earth Series produced by Royal Doulton in 1980 to the Homemaker designs made in the 1950s for Woolworth’s by Ridgway Potteries, Mr Casey’s book is not just an exercise in "Do people really collect those?", but

also an excuse for the people who do to carry on regardless.

After all, no one was harmed in the process of calling objects made yesterday antiques and collectables (except of course the uninitiated). If you buy or sell 20th century pottery at antiques fairs, fleamarkets or car boot sales, then this book should be your bible.

For example, did you know that there are collectors who would kill for a rare piece of Roland Rat gift ware pottery? No, me neither.

To the purist, such as BBC Antiques Roadshow specialist and much loved character Henry Sandon, who wrote the foreword to the book, it is something of anathema to learn that 20th century ceramics are among the fastest growing field of collecting. But it’s true, and we’ll have to live with it.

Having watched a sale last week in which a collection of Beswick farm animals made eye-watering prices, it seems today’s collectors are more interested in kitsch than they are in fine Georgian silver or antique furniture.

As Mr Casey points out, the market for "collectables" — the preferred phrase for 20th century items rather than "antiques — has blossomed over the last 20 years, egged on by television programmes and Internet auctions.

Now, the stuff chucked out by our parents or blown to smithereens in the Blitz is the new Meissen, Chelsea and Bow.

Starting to Collect 20th Century Ceramics is a compendium of manufacturers in Britain, Europe and America. Many of the names are old favourites but there are plenty whom collectors have yet to focus and capitalise upon.

Take William Adams Ltd. The Adams family started manufacturing pottery in 1779 in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent. In the 20th century, the firm produced a wide variety of tea, coffee and dinner wares that are highly collectable.

Ironically however, despite a strong interest in Susie Cooper pottery, the Meadowlands and Inspiration patterns she designed for Adams in circa 1983-84 have yet to be recognised and as such might be useful investment.

Or Barretts of Staffordshire Ltd. A relatively unknown pottery, Barretts was once owned by Great Universal Stores but subsequently the subject of a management buy-out in 1986.

In 1992, Barretts purchased the Royal Stafford company in receivership and the following year the companies were amalgamated to become known as Royal Stafford Tableware, who produced exclusive high-end dinner services for such stores as Ralph Lauren. The products are another one to watch.

Pottery by John Beswick Ltd is already priced beyond the reach of most but in contrast, the firm of E. Brain and Co was formed in 1855 at the Foley Works in Fenton, Stoke-On-Trent.

Foley’s bone china was the tableware of choice for the upper middle classes, but Andrew Casey advises collectors to look out for the small range of Brain fancies such as dishes from the late 1950s decorated with a whimsical images by Maureen Tanner.

Several pages of the book concentrate on the aforementioned Susie Cooper wares and it is clear there is mileage in the old girl yet.

The author suggests collectors keep a lookout for her Curlew shapes, the Art Deco designs from the early 30s such as Seagull, Panorama and Homestead and her Leaping Deer and Angel Fish figural table centres reissued by Wedgwood in 2002.

The Bourne family established the famous pottery in Denby, Derbyshire, in 1809 when they produced salt-glaze stoneware.

In the 1960s, every trendy home had a Denby dinner service but Andrew Casey advises collectors to seek their kitchenware such as Cottage Blue and Manor Green designed by Donald Gilbert in the 1930s.

Collectors are apparently also particularly keen on the rare designs and patterns such as the Cheviot Wares from 1956.

Even Royal Crown Derby, one of this country’s most significant and enduring companies has its collectables.

Founded in 1876, Derby competed with some of the finest English and Continental porcelain manufacturers and in 1890 was awarded a Royal warrant by Queen Victoria.

Shunning the traditional, apparently today’s collectors are drawn to the animal and bird paperweights designed by Robert Jefferson in the 1980s and skilfully painted pieces by such artists as Albert Gregory and Cuthbert Gresley.

A.J. Wilkinson Limited is best known today for Clarice Cliff’s Bizarre ware and if you can afford it, you probably don’t need any help from Andrew Casey.

However, for the less well heeled, he recommends collectors should also look out for the less well-known designs by John Butler, whilst American collectors are apparently eager to purchase a traditional landscape printed dinnerware with the Royal Staffordshire mark known as Tonquin.

I could go on … and on, but space precludes it. I recommend you buy the book. It’s a good read and highly informative. It’s also well illustrated with a host of colour photographs which is a real boon to spotting the bargains at car boot sales.

For the ceramics collector interested in new antiques, it would make a cracking Christmas present. Just don’t be too hacked off remembering what was on your dinner table when you were a child.

Starting to Collect 20th Century Ceramics is priced at £14.95. Contact The Antique Collectors’ Club on 01394 389950.

LIKE thousands of other schoolboys my age, I was introduced to the gloriously idiosyncratic folly that is Portmeirion by the equally bizarre ITV series The Prisoner. Not only did I want to live there, I wanted a Lotus Super Seven as driven by the star of the series, Patrick McGoohan, and a Mini Moke for bobbing around the town.

See a Portmeirion Slideshow

With the passage of time, we’re talking the 1960s here, not one but three cults have grown up: a fascination with the Shangri-La created by architect Clough Williams-Ellis; The Prisoner Appreciation Society, which still holds its annual meetings there; and for us collectors, the eponymous tableware of such distinctive style that is so popular, it is still being made and can be found in homes throughout the UK, US and Asia.

A new book*, published this week to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the opening Williams-Ellis’ holiday retreat for the upper classes, explores each of these cults and much more. But it is the chapter on Portmeirion Pottery, written by Mark Eastment,

that will most interest readers of this column, if only to dispel a few myths that have grown up around it.

For a start, the pottery isn’t made there. Whether it have been created had Portmeirion never been built, we can only speculate, but the fact is, we still have Williams-Ellis to thank for it.

Susan, his daughter, was born in Surrey in 1918, but spent most of her childhood summer holidays in North Wales. The family’s historic home was Plas Brondanw, near Caernarfon, and it was there that as an 11-year-old she bought her first antique, an 19th century pottery mug for 6d.

Academically gifted and with an artistic eye, Susan decided at that point that she wanted to do "something in art". She attended Dartington School where she was taught pottery by the great Bernard Leach and in 1936, she went to Chelsea Polytechnic where she studied under Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland. She married in 1945, her husband Euan Cooper-Willis at the time working for the War Office.

His family owned Blackie’s, the Glasgow-based specialist printing and publishing company, and the couple moved there a year later. While he learned the intricacies of the business, Susan continued her career as a freelance artist contributing among other things designs for a set of tiles produced by Poole Pottery.

However, keen for her children to grow up in Wales, the couple moved to a cottage on Williams-Ellis’ estate near Portmeirion and in 1953, her father gave the couple control of Portmeirion’s general management.

Their goal was to generate income to further develop the village and Susan took over running a small shop in one of the Portmeirion buildings which sold tourist souvenirs including pottery produced in Stoke-on-Trent by A E Gray & Co Ltd.

Albert Gray shared Williams-Ellis’ interest in design and his company had once employed the pottery designer Susie Cooper. Susan’s graphics were used in a small range of pottery produced by Gray’s for the shop including some decorated with a pink lustre similar to that produced a century earlier in Sunderland.

A Portmeirion shop was opened in London in 1958 and following Albert Gray’s death, in 1961 Susan and her husband bought his company, followed by a second called Kirkhams, also in the Potteries, a year later, the combined companies being renamed The Portmeirion Potteries Ltd.

Echoing her father’s understanding of three-dimensional design, Susan set about producing radically different fresh shapes of tableware, notably an elegant coffee pot which was in effect a 12 inch long tube with a spout and handle. This was the perfect canvas for her bold, graphics which echoed the mood of the Swinging Sixties.

The first designs were Gold Diamond and Talisman introduced in 1963 followed by Tivoli and Magic City. Terence Conran was an early champion of Portmeirion in his Habitat stores.

Further designs and shapes tumbled from the business including a set of 12 zodiac tankards printed in gold on matt black and a new shape of coffee mug called Meridian.

Sarah’s signature Portmeirion ware — the Botanic Garden range of tableware — came from a chance purchase in a London antiquarian bookshop of Thomas Green’s The Universal Herbal, first published in around 1824.

The prints it contained inspired her to embrace new technology and reproduce the images on her pottery. The range was introduced in 1972 and is still highly popular today.

Additional books of botanic prints provided further illustrations and demand started to boom. The couple invested in major expansion and reconstruction of the Stoke factory, while at the same time undertaking worldwide travel selling the concept to retailers.

New patterns were developed including Birds of Britain, Summer Strawberry, Welsh Dresser and Harvest Blue, and even prints from Isaac Walton’s Compleat Angler found their way onto Portmeirion dinnerware.

With order books brimming, the company was floated on the stock market in 1988, at the same time buying the former Sylvac site in Longton.

The company received the Silver Jubilee Queen’s Award for Export in 1990 and in 1994, Portmeirion China was introduced to the range.

Other designers were brought in to supplement production but even today, Botanic Garden still accounts for around half of Portmeirion’s total turnover.

Looking to the future, a collaboration with Sophie Conran, daughter of Terence, has resulted in a new fresh look for the years ahead.

*Portmeirion is the collective work of Jan Morris, Alwyn W. Turner, Mark Eastment, Stephen Lacey and Robin Llewellyn, with a foreword by jazz pianist Jools Holland. It is published by the Antique Collectors’ Club and is priced at £25. Copies can be obtained at Portmeirion Village. The images published here are courtesy of Portmeirion Potteries.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Scotland which has a long history of traditional crafts that are highly sought after today, particularly among tourist collectors looking to find objects related to the auld country. Perthshire dealer Becca Gauldie had all the answers.

Treen – the collective term for domestic items made from a tree – is plentiful throughout Scotland which is sometimes surprising, considering the lack of native forests.

Bickers, piggins, luggies and quaichs are all treen bowls made by tinker families, many of whom travelled around the country selling their wares from door to door. A bicker is a two-handled small, straight-sided bowl with flat handles. A piggin is similar but with upright handles, while a luggie is slightly larger and with one splayed upright handle. ll have an intricate “feathered” construction which picks them out as being Scottish.

A quaich is the smallest and best known bowl with two or more handles used for drinking whisky. Although most of these objects were made from native holly and sycamore, quaichs were also made in metal, silver and other materials. The decorative feathering process refers to a method of coopering that involved overlaying tiny slivers of wood in the staves to use as joints. When damp, the wood swells making the bowl watertight.

Willow lathies were bound around the outside of the vessel to keep the object together, in case it should dry out. Sadly, many of these have fallen apart when they were no longer in use, usually as a result of central heating. All these items vary dramatically in price according to their size, but collectors should expect to pay upwards of £180, depending on the complexity of the design and condition of the article.

If you fancy collecting something made by the travellers but can’t afford drinking vessels, then pegs and baskets offer still excellent value. They were one of the last traditional crafts to survive and were sold from door to door up to the 1950s. Pegs are beautifully made and make attractive paperclips, while the baskets are stronger and more durable than their modern day alternatives.

Beautifully turned elm dairy bowls and deeply carved butter stamps, made from the 18th century through to the early 20th century, are also highly desirable. While many butter stamps typically feature the carved outline of a cow or a thistle as part of the stamp, it is also possible to find examples carved with the name of a farm. These are of particular interest to collectors since they relate directly to one place and are undoubtedly unique.

Another particularly Scottish kitchen article is the spirtle, the unusually long-handled stick for stirring porridge. Fine examples often have a finial in the shape of a thistle and but a plain one can be picked up for under £15. They look good in a kitchen jar and, according to Becca Gauldie, are also good for stirring spaghetti!

Perthshire and Angus are renowned for their Laburnum furniture and table treen. This is usually characterised by extreme tones of light and dark in the same piece of wood, originally caused by the damp or dry conditions in which the wood was grown. Laburnum is not a wood used to any extent elsewhere in Britain and so is particularly interesting to collectors of Scottish pieces.

Also commonly found in a farmhouse kitchen is the candle box. Usually made of Scots Fir and wall mounted, they feature varying levels of decoration, from Celtic motifs, biblical quotes to animal figures. Quite often candle boxes finished in what is called a buttermilk stain, a shiny brown finish of several layers of different coloured paints. Although they vary dramatically in price, a plain painted candle box will sell for around £90.

It is impossible to ignore one item of treen that is not native to Scotland but was commonly found in cottages throughout the fishing areas that it has become very much a part of the Scots heritage. Brightly decorated ‘Riga’ ware was brought to the Orkneys and Shetland Isles by the Baltic fishermen and traded for illegally distilled whisky with their Highland neighbours. Riga ware is made from feather light Baltic pine and, with its deep and brightly coloured traditional decoration, is quite different from anything made in Scotland.

Until quite recently it was a common sight on the windowsills of cottages in many seaside villages. Riga ware has become scarce in the last 10 years and yet it still compares favourably in price with Scottish treen, a small bowl selling for around £10, while a spectacular piece would cost at least £400.

A famous character in the development of Scottish folk art is the Blind Man of Ayrshire, a homeless individual who travelled the area in the mid 19th century and whose carvings of ladles, plaques and wonderful three dimensional integral hinge snuff boxes are without comparison. The depth of his carving is attributed to the fact that he was blind and carved entirely by touch. His scenes are often drawn from the work of Robert Burns – depicting figures dancing and drinking with sheep or hounds in attendance.

Most cottages homes across the UK would have a hanging dresser, or plate rack, made by a local craftsman. Scottish examples usually have a bar across the front to allow the plates to lean forwards, which saves a little in height for cottages with low ceilings.

Increasingly sought after today and very hard to find, they look particularly attractive when adorned with the typical Scottish spongeware cottage pottery.

Bowls, mugs, plates and jugs, hand-decorated with images of animals, flowers, mottoes, butterflies, shells and native birds applied by the deft application of coloured slip with a sponge are collected across the world.

Competition for the best examples is always fierce among collectors. However, there are many mass produced modern copies, but they have none of the charm of the original pieces, and are easy to spot.

Condition is almost unimportant. Since these items were in constant use, undamaged pieces are hard to find and many collectors are happy to accept a little wear and tear.

A simple sponged porringer (porridge bowl) in good condition will cost upwards of £60.

Horn and bone items are also strongly characteristic of Scotland.

Snuff boxes carved with images of fish, snuff mulls decorated with elaborate carving and with Cairngorm finials, powder horns with scrimshaw decoration, ladles for punch and snuff, and spoons for porridge are all very much a part of the Scots heritage.

It is also possible to find intricately carved snuff boxes made from Baleen ivory, a by-product of the whaling industry.

Look out for the beautiful little ladles for reaching into tobacconists’ jars and pierced spoons made from mutton bone and designed for taking snuff.

A simple horn spoon can still be bought for about £10. Snuff boxes of simple design cost from about £50, although snuff mulls command higher prices from around £250 upwards, depending on their quality.

Scotland is particularly known for its wonderful patchwork quilts, made in traditional Scottish patterns, sometimes with pieces of old tartan plaid.

Rag or ‘hookie’ rugs, made from scraps of worn clothing or left over material, often in unusually bright colours and patterns, are also sought after. They make an ideal addition to the home lying in front of the hearth and a roaring fire.

Look out too for bannock turners and toasters, (for baking oatcakes in front of the fire), made by blacksmiths.

Local craftsmen made elaborate wirework garden furniture, unique stone items such as the very unusual Scottish garden watchstands, and cheese presses. They were the same craftsmen who made gravestones in Perthshire and Angus.

And Becca Gauldie’s advice for new collectors? Buy while you still can – there isn’t a limitless supply of good folk art and the best pieces are too often snapped up by overseas buyers happy to cash in on the fact that Folk Art from the British Isles is less expensive than their own.

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show
A selection of Scottish treen which Becca Gauldie has for sale

Distinctive spongeware pottery, unique to Scotland. Note the carpet bowls, much loved souvenirs of Victorian tourists

Charmingly naïve Scottish scrimshaw, in the form of a beaker and a decorative powder flask

The Victorians loved the wirework garden chairs and flower planters made by craftsmen north of the border.

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)

by Christopher Proudlove©

Lovers and collectors of antiques, I urge you to see Miss Potter, the movie starring Renee Zellwegger detailing the life of Beatrix Potter. Go … now … I’ll pay! It’s a beautiful film, not least for the stunning Lake District countryside in which much of it is set and, of course the touching story of the woman who brought us Peter Rabbit and his chums.

But it’s the fabulous room settings and her wonderful drawings that come to life on the screen which make the film so compelling for collectors. See it and be inspired, just don’t get any ideas about buying Beatrix Potter watercolours – unless your pockets are deep. These two illustrated sold for a staggering £40,630.

If nothing else, the sale proved there is no upper limit to the prices collectors are prepared to pay for objects related to the great children’s book illustrator. Fortunately, however, you don’t have to spend a fortune to collect objects related to Beatrix and her menagerie of creations.

The market in Beatrix Potter characters (one carefully managed by publishers Frederick Warne and Company) is a worldwide business with an established and extensive range of licensed merchandise, worth it is said, more than $500m (dollars) a year.

More than 100 companies in the UK alone are licencees of the products and they include major manufacturers such as Wedgwood; Royal Doulton; Beswick and Royal Albert.

While today their products might be termed as collectables, one day they will be antiques in their own right and, given the rarity that inevitably comes with the passage of time, worth considerably more than they cost.

Readers starting the search for Easter presents for youngsters could do worse than give Beatrix Potter-inspired ceramic figures made by the John Beswick Studios. The company was established in 1894 at Longton, in Stoke-on-Trent, initially producing tableware and ornaments.

Only later, in the 1930s, did it turn to animal modelling, notably the series of shire and famous racehorses and champion dogs. The studio subsequently became renowned as the finest for animal figures and also produced a range of whimsical figures of animals with human expressions and in human poses.

Beswick began producing Beatrix Potter story book characters in 1948. The first piece, created by chief modeller Arthur Gredington, was Jemima Puddle-Duck, which was released along with nine other characters. They were an immediate success and are extremely sought after today. The Royal Doulton Group acquired Beswick in 1969.

To know more about Helen Beatrix Potter (1864-1943) helps to understand this wave of nostalgia for likenesses of the characters she “invented”. She was born in Kensington, South London, where she endured a lonely and repressed childhood, her pets, among them a mouse, a rabbit and a hedgehog, being her only friends.

These and the exhibits she saw on visits to the National History Museum in South Kensington, were carefully sketched in page after page of notebooks, which she took everywhere with her.

Holidays in Scotland and the Lake District instilled in her a love of the countryside and gave her a visual memory from which she drew readily when, years later, she began to paint for a living.

She once said: “I do not remember a time when I did not try to invent pictures and make for myself a fairyland amongst the wild flowers, the animals, the fungi, mosses, woods and streams, all the thousand objects of the countryside.”

Lucy Beswick was a great fan of Beatrix Potter’s nursery stories and took the characters, particularly Jemima Puddle-Duck, to her heart. By coincidence, her husband, Ewart, just happened to be the chairman and managing director of pottery manufacturers John Beswick Ltd., in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent.

They were holidaying in the Lake District and while they were there, they visited the farmhouse near Hawkshead where Beatrix Potter spent the last 30 years of her life and wrote the books that have enchanted children for four generations.On their return to the Potteries, Lucy Beswick had an idea. Why not bring Jemima to life … in clay?

Suitably inspired by the suggestion, Beswick’s chief modeller Arthur Gredington set to and produced the first in what subsequently proved to be a run of Beatrix Potter figures that continues today. So delighted were the Beswick directors with Jemima Puddle-Duck in her blue poke bonnet and purple shawl that permission was obtained from the publishers of the tales to reproduce her and the other favourite characters for the general public.

By 1947, Jemima had been joined by Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten, Timmy Tiptoes, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs Tittlemouse, Little Pig Robinson, Benjamin Bunny, Samuel Whiskers, and Mrs Tiggy Winkle. All were modelled by Arthur Gredington.

Beswick were already producing a small range of pottery figures including humorous animal studies and characters from literature, but in 1947, they formed only a minor part of the firm’s production.

Jemima and her friends changed all that and the rest is collecting history!

She was in her mid 30s when she published her first book, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”, the inspiration for which was a letter illustrated with sketches which she wrote to a boy named Noel Moore, the son of her former governess, in 1893.

Amazingly (or so it seems now) at least six publishers rejected the idea, including Frederick Warne and Co., who was eventually to change its mind and Beatrix decided to have the book printed privately.

The first 250 copies containing 41 black and white illustrations were ready on December 16, 1901, to be given as Christmas presents to her friends and relations, the remainder to be sold at a halfpenny a copy.

In February of the following year a second impression of 200 copies were issued with slight textual changes and inserted in a more robust binding with a round back.

Warne and Co., had by this time realised the commercial potential of the idea and in October issued the storybook with the illustrations in full colour throughout.

Its success was universal. The combination of small books with pages of simple text opposite meticulously painted and sharply observed vignettes of real animals but with human attributes established Peter Rabbit and his friends in nursery folklore.

Beatrix also became secretly engaged to the publisher, Norman Warne, who died tragically before the wedding. In 1905, using the proceeds from her first books, she was able to leave her parents and move to her beloved Lake District, where she bought Hill Top Farm at Sawrey, above Lake Windermere.

More than 20 other books followed, introducing such characters as Tom Kitten; Jemima Puddle-Duck; Little Pig Robinson; the Tailor of Gloucester and his mice; Miss Moppet; the Flopsy Bunnies; Mrs Tittlemouse; Timmy Tiptoes; Squirrel Nutkin; Benjamin Bunny; Mrs Tiggy-Winkle; Jeremy Fisher and many more … ah yes, I remember them well!

A strong-willed character, Beatrix was determined that the printed reproductions of her watercolours in her books was as accurate as possible and this quality control ensured their further success, as much with parents as with their children.

Strong, vibrant colours and precise detail was combined with an immense knowledge of the animal world and botany made her books compelling enough.

Add to this her hugely fertile imagination with creatures wearing frock coats and frilly bonnets engaged in all manner of amusing incidents and it is easy to see why they have been so enduring to each successive generation.

In 1913, Beatrix married William Heelis, a local solicitor who shared her farming interests and, despite the huge popularity of her books, devoted herself to sheep farming.

This she tackled with the same strong-willed determination, eventually becoming president of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders’ Association.

She used her wealth to buy no fewer than 15 farms as they became vacant and 4,000 acres subsequently bequeathed to the National Trust, which preserves many of her original drawings at Hill Top Farm. The legacy helped secure the Lake District from the developers and continue the tradition of hill-farming.

The Tate Gallery has a collection of 22 of the original watercolour drawings for The Tailor of Gloucester, published in 1902, which some people consider are the most outstanding examples of her artistry.

Of course, modern day collectors need not restrict themselves to Beatrix Potter characters. Bunnykins collectors’ pieces have already achieved great success and earlier pieces are sought after, while Disney characters are another potential for tomorrow’s collectors.

However, the one to look out for is the now rare Duchess, the little black dog from Beatrix Potter’s 1905 book Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan. The little Beswick figure was produced in two versions, the earlier of which today is worth £800-1,200. It was produced from 1955-67 and is identifiable from a later version because it has a gold backstamp on the base and the figure holds a bunch of flowers rather than a pie. The second version, produced between 1979 and 1982 is worth £100-150.

38223-070108-299370-80

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

by Christopher Proudlove©
In the post preceding this I wrote about porcelain decorated with magical images made at the Minton factory by French émigré Louis Solon. But that’s only half the story. Louis had a son, Leon, born in Stoke-on-Trent, so he had china clay in his blood. Léon’s innovations earned him his own place in the history of English ceramics. He was responsible for producing the remarkable porcelain plaques illustrated here, but he will be remembered best for his introduction to the Minton factory of so-called Secessionist Ware.

You will recall that Solon the elder had trained at the Sèvres factory in France, where he perfected the pâte-sur-pâte technique. Literally “paste on paste”, this involved building up layer after layer of white slip clay to produce decoration with a unique cameo-effect on objects such as vases, tiles and wall plaques. His arrival at Minton revived the company’s fortunes. Louis also married wisely, choosing Maria, the daughter of Leon Arnoux, Minton’s art director and regarded by many as “the man who made Minton”. The couple had eight sons and one daughter.

The first born, Léon Albert Victor Solon (1872-1957) was no less gifted than his father, the objects illustrated here bearing testament to his genius. Solon the younger trained at the Hanley and Kensington Schools of Art and joined Minton in 1895, rising to become head of the firm’s Art Nouveau department. Minton was quick to adopt the Art Nouveau style and when Léon’s designs were published by the design magazine The Studio while he was still a student, Minton were equally quick to offer him a job.

The development of the Art Nouveau movement as it spread across Europe was shaped in part by a group of rebel Viennese artists who had turned their backs on the Establishment. Vienna in the last quarter of the 19th century was a city of divisions: the rich enjoyed a lavish lifestyle of society balls and extravagance, while the poor struggled with a housing shortage, hunger and misery. The city’s young intellectuals, the artists, writers and scientists, looked to the new century for a new beginning.

For its artists, it came with the founding of a new society – the Secession – which, unlike Vienna’s long standing traditional Society of Artists, was intended to raise concern for art in the city and promote contact with artists abroad. It was founded by Gustav Klimt, Kolo Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich. They decided to form their own exhibiting society and to publish a magazine called Ver Sacrum – the Sacred Spring. The first exhibition was held in the spring of 1898 with already a sizeable contribution from foreign artists, including some from Britain – “corresponding members of the Secession” as they were called. In 1900, for example, Scottish designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and members of his circle exhibited at the society’s eighth show.

At the same time Minton was casting around for new ideas and with this European roots, Léon was eager to contribute. His first designs in 1898 were based on the principles of the Viennese movement and named Secessionist ware, underlining the Secession Movement’s impact even in North Staffordshire.

In 1901, Léon was joined at Minton by John Wadsworth and together they introduced many highly original designs to the Secessionist range. Shapes for the ornamental range of vases included inverted trumpets, elongated cylinders and exaggerated bottle forms, although tableware shapes remained conventional.

The complete Secessionist range comprised useful as well as ornamental wares including cheese dishes, plates, teapots, jugs and comports. Collectors today covet in particular the large jardinières, specially if their matching pedestal stands are complete and undamaged.

Initially patterns were accurate portrayals of themes from nature – flowers, birds and figures – but under the joint influence of Solon and Wadsworth, the natural sources were exaggerated and even distorted when the convoluted plant forms and floral motifs reach a peak of fantasy around the turn of the century.

Léon left Minton in 1905 and emigrated to America. The subsequent designs, the work of John Wadsworth alone, were well-defined, yet simplified abstract forms with the occasional use of classical motifs.

The body of the ware was made in cane-coloured earthenware and the surface decoration outlined in relief, either when each piece was cast from the mould or tube-lined. The latter technique involved squeezing a thin layer of liquid clay (slip) through a glass tube by hand on to biscuit (unglazed) ware in a fashion similar to icing a cake. The brightly coloured lead glazes were then painted within these outlines. Occasionally, a block-print would be used to produce a background effect, usually taking the form of foliage, and would form an integral part of the design.

One of the most visually stunning patterns on Secessionist ware features the so-called “Glasgow rose”. This stylised, angular representation of the flower is probably one of the best known Charles Rennie Mackintosh motifs and it is fascinating to speculate on how Minton brought together Vienna, Glasgow and Stoke in a single piece. The final Minton catalogue for Secessionist ware was produced in 1920 but despite this relatively short production run, considerable quantities were produced. However, its individual hand-made appearance was largely retained and because of the instability of the coloured glazes in use at the time and the methods by which they were applied, firing produced somewhat unpredictable results. The effect of colours intermingling is often seen and imparts a distinctive character to the ware.

Most Secessionist ware is marked “Minton Ltd.” with a distinctive black or green printed backstamp in swirling Art Nouveau style. When unmarked, “Mintons” can usually be found impressed into the clay. Impressed cyphers correspond to a year code by which a piece can be dated. Incised numbers of four digits identify the Minton shapes, while printed numbers denote the design sequence. Painted letters denote the various colour combinations used.

Pictures show, top: An extremely fine Minton porcelain plaque in multi colours depicting a bonneted lady in a long dress semi-kneeling at a shrine with a young seated angelic girl on a pillar and with an imaginary riverside townscape in the background, signed by Leon V. Solon. It sold for £1700. Below that is a Minton porcelain plaque depicting a lady in a long flowing dress kneeling at prayer, signed by Leon V Solon, 10.5 x 8 ins in a gilt frame. It sold for £1300

Below, left: These two Secessionist circular pottery plates, together with a similar square shallow dish sold for £240 in a recent auction of Minton ceramics

Right: The cover of Minton’s 1902 catalogue of Secessionist Ware

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© 2006 All Rights Reserved.

by Christopher Proudlove©

Minton master potter Louis Solon was livid. Returning home from Minton’s Staffordshire Potteries works one day, to his horror, he found that his maid had blackleaded the fireplace. No big deal, you might think. On the contrary, beneath the gunge were tiles Solon had decorated with an experimental glaze technique over which he had toiled for hundreds of hours.

The maid’s inadvertent snub is something that wouldn’t happen today. For a start, the tiles with their ethereal, cloudy white designs which Solon had built into the grate’s cast iron surround are more likely to be found in museums. And when an example comes on to the market, Minton’s so-called pâte-sur-pâte ceramics can fetch prices that defy gravity.

The name pâte-sur-pâte means literally paste on paste and it describes a technique that involves building up layer after layer of white slip clay to produce a unique cameo-effect decoration to ceramic objects such as vases, tiles and wall plaques.

These layers of slip had to be applied to the unfired pot while it was kept in a workable or “green” state. With the speed at which clay dries, this meant only so much decoration could be done at a time. When forced to stop, the decorator was required to return the piece to a lead-lined box full of wet rags to so that the pot could soak up moisture. Consequently, much of the work took many months to complete.

The process was introduced at the Sèvres factory in France where Solon had studied and mastered the technique, becoming its best known exponent. When, in 1870, Solon was “headhunted” by Minton as designer and modeller, his secrets came with him. The masterpieces he created became one of Minton’s major contributions to Victorian ceramics.

MSP – Minton’s abbreviation for the Minton Solon Process – was laborious, time-consuming and expensive, but the company allowed Solon to devote all his time to it over a long period. He was soon able to build up a small studio where he trained a number of apprentices whom he made responsible for the more repetitive work. This left Solon free to concentrate on the main figures, usually maidens and cherubs in diaphanous veils floating ethereally on subtle blue, grey and black grounds.

It has been said that as Solon grew older, his maidens grew fatter. It is true that in his earlier work, they are sylph-like, while 20 years on, they appear much more voluptuous. Solon had his witty side too. One particularly amusing vase shows a sensuous lady with a wicked expression dancing with veils, while his cherubs always seemed to suffer. They were made to climb fiery rope ladders, were locked in cages, expected to dance like puppets and were washed in basins and pegged out by their wings on washing lines to dry!

Many of Solon’s ornamental shapes were unique: large vases were adorned with the most complex handles, while a heavy font is supported by the arms of cherubs. His choice of ground colours also developed: his “changing pink” did just that, varying from strawberry to mushroom, depending on the light in which the object is viewed.

His other favourites included Prussian blue and celadon green, often used together, black, vivid green, salmon and chocolate brown, all of which were usually highlighted with the white figures. Occasionally, however, figures were in polychrome colours such as lilac, pastel blue, sand, grey, salmon and grass green.

Solon trained others and notable among them were Frederick Rhead, who later went to work for Woods and Sons, and Wedgwood, and Alboin and Laurence Birks who produced some stunning pieces.

A number of Solon pieces were on show at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 including déjeuner sets, dessert services, ice buckets, paperweights, trays and many pairs of vases. One pair, which cost £156 to produce, were sold to the retailer for 260 guineas and then offered for sale to the public at £350. Today, the same vases would fetch more than £4,000-6,000 or more.

Sadly, however, relatively few pieces of pâte-sur-pâte come onto the market and when they do, it is usually in a London auction room. Many eager bidders are attracted, particularly if a piece was actually made by the master himself. Examples of the work of Alboin Birks, Solon’s top apprentice, also sell at a premium and do occasionally turn up in provincial salerooms, where sometimes they are overlooked.

Pâte-sur-pâte continued to be produced at Minton until 1937, when it was used to create royal profiles on commemorative wares. The largest vase ever produced by the company was commissioned by Queen Victoria to commemorate her jubilee. It stands more than three feet tall and is displayed at her summer retreat, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight.

Picture shows: Detail from the reverse of The Idol Seller. Cupid, seated at his workbench, makes the toys that are being sold by his mistress. Note the line of finished dolls hanging behind him. The vase is worth £3,000-5,000