Current Location: In storage
Titles
Tile panel with red lustre galleon
Maker(s)
William De Morgan & Co.
Entities
Categories
Description
Dark earthenware tiles, slip coated, glazed and decorated with red and gold lustre.
Panel of three tiles arranged horizontally and decorated with a single image in red lustre, highlighted in gold lustre. A large galleon, with two large sails and a small square foresail and an eagle figurehead carries a crowned figure with sceptre, musicians, sailors, spear carriers and a monkey. Three flags stream fly from its decks. Below, on the waves are three fish and another swims behind. In front a large sun with sleepy face sinks into the sea. The tiles are mounted in a dark wood frame.
Notes
History note: Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor, St Andrew’s, Fife; Sir Ivor died on 24 April 2005
Legal notes
Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor Bequest
Place(s) associated
-
Fulham
⪼ London
⪼ England
Acquisition and important dates
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed
(2015-04-27)
by
Batchelor, Ivor, Sir and Lady
Dating
19th Century, Late#
Circa
1888
-
Circa
1898
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, in 1887, married the Pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn Pickering (1855-1919). 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. De Morgan produced tiles and lustre-ware in Chelsea from 1872, and at Merton Abbey (next door to Morris’s factory) from 1882-8. From 1888-98 he set up at Sands End, Fulham, in partnership with the architect Halsey Ricardo (1854-1928), continuing from 1898-1907 with his kiln-master Frank Iles and decorators Charles and Fred Passenger as his partners. De Morgan made many, many designs for tiles and tile panels – some 820 are in the V&A collection.
Components of the work
Decoration
composed of
lustre
Materials used in production
Earthenware
References and bibliographic entries
Identification numbers
Accession number: C.236-2015
Primary reference Number: 206783
Stable URI
Audit data
Created: Tuesday 15 September 2015
Updated: Wednesday 15 July 2020
Last processed: Monday 18 December 2023
Associated departments & institutions
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
