Ruby lustre tile with fantastic beast: EC.6-1941

Titles

Ruby lustre tile with fantastic beast

Maker(s)

Maker: William De Morgan & Co.
Designer: Ricardo, Halsey ((probably))

Entities

• Tile

Categories

• Earthenware
• Lustreware
• Art Pottery

Description

Large buff earthenware tile, moulded in relief, partly slip-coated, glazed and painted in ruby lustre. A leaping fantasy beast faces right; five feathers or horns rise from its head, like a crown. Above left is a palm-like tree, with other stylised foliage filling spaces across the surface. The whole surface is glazed and most is painted with ruby lustre; but parts of the raised surface have been left unpainted, giving buff highlights to the tree and crown and accentuating the modelling of the beast, and the raised surface has been further decorated with a darker tone of ruby lustre. There are some white glaze drips on the top and left sides, otherwise the sides and reverse are unglazed.

Legal notes

Given by Mr H C Mossop, 1941

Place(s) associated

• Fulham ⪼ London ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1941-03-26) by Mossop, H. C.

Dating

19th Century, Late#
Victorian
1888 CE - 1897 CE

Note

William Frend De Morgan (1839-1917), now widely regarded as the most important ceramicist of the Arts & Crafts movement, also worked in stained glass and became a successful novelist. The son of a non-conformist mathematics professor, he became a close friend of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones and married the Pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn Pickering (1855-1919), in 1887. As a ceramicist, De Morgan was primarily a designer/decorator and chemist, working on bought-in blanks or pots thrown to his design. He experimented widely with techniques and glazes, re-discovering methods for making and applying lustres and the colours of Iznik and Persian pottery and using them for a range of complex fantasy designs featuring ships, birds, flora and animals. This design dates from 1888-1898, when he worked in partnership with the architect Halsey Ricardo, at Sands End Fulham. Ricardo (1854-1928) was particularly interested in the use of glazed materials on buildings, to resist the pollution of 19th century London. He made a number of designs for tiles and tile panels made by De Morgan, including several which were moulded in high relief, probably including this design (sometimes produced in gold lustre or ruby lustre on white ground and/or facing left). As the tile is large and has no horizontal or vertical repeat, it may have been made for display in a frame. Some 820 De Morgan tile designs, including a few by Ricardo, are in the V&A collection.

School or Style

Arts and Crafts (movement)