Fruit and foliage tube-lined jug: C.14-1998

Titles

Fruit and foliage tube-lined jug

Maker(s)

Factory: Wood, H. J.
Designer: Rhead, Charlotte

Entities

• Jug

Categories

• Earthenware
• Art Pottery

Description

Earthenware jug, covered in pale, mottled cream/orange glaze, tube-lined and painted with lustrous orange and blue-brown glazes and gold.

Ovoid shape, with short incurved neck, curved pinched spout, and short strap handle. Decorated with a wide band of stylised branches bearing grey-brown foliage and orange and yellow fruit, with stylised blue flowers and berries in the background. Below there are half flower heads between sets of two horizontal bands, each flanking a gold band; below that, a greyish-brown zone extends down to the base. Above the foliage decoration there are similar sets of horizontal bands flanking broad grey-brown vertical strokes, between them are freckled orange rectangles with a dot in the centre. The neck and handle are grey-brown specked with orange, and there is a gilt band round the rim. The glaze on the interior of the neck is dappled with orange, as is the slightly concave underside.

Notes

History note: Cheffins, Grain & Comins, Cambridge, 13th May 1998, Pottery, Porcelain & Glass, lot 58; purchased by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum

Legal notes

Given by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1998-06-08) by The Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum

Dating

1940s
1950s
Circa 1942 CE - Circa 1960 CE

Note

Charlotte Rhead (1885-1947), also known as ‘Lottie’, came from a family of potters who over several generations built a reputation for tube-lined and pâte-sur-pâte decoration. Charlotte trained at Fenton School of Art and from 1901 worked at a succession of potteries as a decorator. From 1912-1926 she worked for her father, Frederick, who was art director at Wood & Sons, and at their subsidiaries Bursley Ltd and the Ellgreave Pottery Co; some of this work appeared under her own back-stamp as ‘Lottie Rhead ware’. By 1926, she had joined Burgess & Leigh, and from 1932-c.1942 designed art-ware and other products for A.G.Richardson & Co. In 1942 she returned to a Wood & Sons subsidiary, H.J.Wood, remaining there until her death. Although best known for her popular tube-lined designs, Charlotte Read also introduced new shapes and innovative glazes, including ‘broken’ (mottled) glazes and a thick matt white ‘snow glaze’ which attracted interest in the trade press.

Charlotte Rhead’s designs for H J Wood were marketed under the factory’s old ‘Bursley Ware’ label, with a special backstamp including her name, though the business had by then re-located from the Bursley works. This design is known to have been produced into the 1950s - a similar jug was advertised in Wood's catalogue, c.1954. The ‘M’ has been identified as a decorator’s mark, though unattributed (see Bumpus, 1987, p.89).

School or Style

Art Deco