‘Moonlight’ vase: C.65-2023

Titles

‘Moonlight’ vase

Maker(s)

Factory: Royal Doulton

Entities

• Vase

Categories

• Stoneware
• Art Pottery

Description

Buff clay decorated with coloured slips and green lead-free glaze.

Vase of elongated ovoid shape decorated with a continuous design of three fruit-bearing trees against a backdrop of three cypresses and a bank of other trees. Fruit in orange-brown, trees in shades of blue and green, set on a ground of pale green. Thin green glaze. Surface marked with tiny horizontal incisions, into which glaze has sunk. Interior of neck pale green. Underside slightly indented and clear glazed, within foot-rim.

Notes

History note: Lent by Rita Smythe

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Ian and Rita Smythe, 2023

Place(s) associated

• Burslem ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2023) by Smythe, Ian and Rita

Dating

Production date: circa AD 1927

Note

Doulton and Co, founded c.1815, originally made utility ceramics, with some stoneware jugs and ornamental bottles. Henry Doulton introduced decorative stoneware and architectural terracotta at Lambeth in the mid 1860s, championing individuality, innovation and versatility, and his modellers and decorators (many of them women) used a wide range of techniques and decorative treatments to produce both unique, artist-signed, and limited edition pieces. From 1872 the business expanded into faience and in the 1880s opened a factory at Burslem, Staffordshire, where bone china and other wares were made. In 1901, Edward VII granted the Royal warrant to the factory.

‘Barbotine wares’, hand-painted with coloured slips, were introduced between c.1890 and 1915 and, on a more limited scale, from c.1920-1939. ‘Moonlight’ design was introduced c.1927.