Small side plate from ‘Travel ‘ series (bus): C.15-2005

Titles

Small side plate from ‘Travel ‘ series (bus)

Maker(s)

Factory: Wedgwood
Designer: Ravilious, Eric William

Entities

• Plate
• side plate

Categories

• Earthenware
• Queen's ware

Description

Small earthenware plate, printed underglaze in black and painted overglaze in pale turquoise enamel.

'Windsor Grey' body, printed in black and painted in turquoise enamel. Circular with a narrow slightly concave rim, and shallow curved sides. Decorated in the centre with a ’Bus’ in ‘Travel’ pattern: a bus containing figures driving towards the viewer, along a road with turquoise kerd-stones; on the rim, black weather cones (?) alternating with turquoise semi-circles under curved black lines.

Notes

History note: E Sworder & Sons, auctioneers, 20 September 2005, lot 118; the Fry Art Gallery, Bridge End Gardens, Castle Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 1BD (not accessioned), from whom purchased

Legal notes

Purchased with the Applied Arts Duplicates Fund

Place(s) associated

• Barlaston ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bought (2005-11-21) by The Fry Art Gallery

Dating

Elizabeth I
20th Century, Mid
Production date: AD 1954

Note

Eric Ravilious (1903-42) studied engraving, illustration and colour printing at the Royal College of Art and by 1926-28 was exhibiting watercolours, producing book illustrations and commissioned to paint murals. In 1930 he married Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood (1908-1951) also a noted artist and engraver. From around 1936, he became one of Wedgwood’s most prolific freelance designers, although many of his designs were not produced in quantity until after World War II, during which he was killed while serving as a war artist with the Royal Marines. Wedgwood had revived the use of engraved designs in the mid 1930s – a mode of decoration which allowed the artist’s own work and ‘hand-writing’ to be reproduced in a factory setting, and well suited to Ravilious’ style.

Ravilious produced at least seven Wedgwood tableware pattern series, each with a number of vignettes on a single everyday theme, and sometimes also drew the tableware shapes for additions such as jam-pots. ‘Travel’ was designed c.1937 and first made in 1953. It was printed in black on a newly-introduced Windsor Grey body and hand coloured. A ‘Travel’ dinner service for six, depicting travel through snow and by balloon, bus, train, aeroplane, steamboat and sail, cost £17 3s 6d. Ravilious also designed commemorative wares, including a Coronation Mug for Edward VIII (1936), later adapted for the coronations of both George VI and Elizabeth II; a mug celebrating the company’s relocation to Barlaston (1939); and a ‘Boat Race Day’ bowl, cup and stand (1938). Earlier designs were engraved at the factory from Ravilious’ drawings, but the ‘Boat Race’ images were lithographs drawn by Ravilious himself for direct application to the ware.

The Fitzwilliam Museum also holds a war-time watercolour by Ravilious, two books with his engravings and a number of his prints, and a book of Tirzah Ravilious’ engravings.