‘Oranges and Lemons’ mug (St Giles): C.72C-1992

Titles

‘Oranges and Lemons’ mug (St Giles)

Maker(s)

Factory: Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd
Designer: Guyatt, Richard Talbot

Entities

• Mug
• Beaker

Categories

• Earthenware
• Creamware
• Queen's ware

Description

Earthenware, printed underglaze in black and painted overglaze in pink and green enamel with part of a line of the nursery rhyme, 'Oranges and Lemons': 'Brickbats & Tiles'.

Cream-coloured earthenware printed underglaze in black and painted overglaze in pink and green enamel. The mug is of truncated conical form with a loop handle. The underside is recessed and glazed. The sides are decorated with the inscription 'Brickbats & Tiles', in black. The 'B’ is formed from bricks, with the spaces within the letter indicated by a doorway (containing a tree) and an upper window, where a workman sits astride the sill, hammering; a ladder reaches up to the window, whilst on the ground another man is poised to throw a brick up. The '&' is a striped bell rope. The 'T' is a church with a tall tower, across which is a flaring strip of flocking birds. There is a pink band round the rim and, at the bottom, the inscription ‘Say the bells of St. Giles’ with a green band over. The inside and handle are unpainted.

Notes

History note: Given by Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor

Legal notes

Given by Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor

Place(s) associated

• Barlaston ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1992-04-27) by Batchelor, Ivor, Sir and Lady

Dating

20th Century, Mid
Circa 1955 CE - 1960 CE

Note

Guyatt’s other Wedgwood designs included a dinner service for King’s College, Cambridge, also c.1952-53, and commemorative mugs for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the Prince of Wales's Investiture in 1969 and several royal weddings; his last mug, in 2005, was for the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Outside Wedgwood, his commercial commissions ranged from exhibition stands to coins, stamps, the WH Smith logo and packaging for Anchor butter.

Richard Gerald Talbot Guyatt CBE (1914-2007) began his career as a freelance graphic designer with posters for Shell-Mex and BP and book illustrations. At the Royal College of Art, where he was a professor from 1948 and later rector, he lead the introduction of education in graphic design and influenced subsequent expansion into typography, illustration, printmaking, photography, film and television design. From 1952-55 and 1967-70 Guyatt was consultant designer to Wedgwood. The company 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 Guyatt’s style.

The Fitzwilliam Museum holds examples of the jug and three of the mugs from the ‘Oranges and Lemons’ set, as well as items from the King’s College dinner service and Wedgwood Queen’s ware designed by Eric Ravilious.

This mug is part of a ‘lemonade set’ comprising a jug and four mugs, originally made for sale through Liberty’s and later distributed more widely. The set illustrates old London churches, using the theme of the nursery rhyme ‘Oranges and Lemons’. ‘Brickbats and Tiles, say the bells of St Giles’s’ refers to builders who used to work in the vicinity of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, in the City of London. The church was one of the few to survive the Great Fire of London, but a new peal of bells was cast in 1954.