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Sunflower Dish
Potter: Malkin, Samuel (Probably)
Press-moulded slipware dish decorated with the initials S M on a panel in the middle of a tree bearing three large sunflowers, and having a bird on either side
Buff earthenware press-moulded over a hump mould to produce a design in relief on the inside, coated with cream slip, and slip-trailed in dark ochre and dark brown slips under yellowish lead-glaze; the exterior is undecorated. The dish is circular with deep curved sides and a crinkled edge, produced by adjacent impressions made with an oval ended implement or stick. The inside is decorated with a stylized tree bearing three large sunflower heads with petals alternately ochre and dark brown, and two tulip stems, one on each side of the tree. Above are two birds perching on the tulip stems, and in the middle between them is a rectangular frame enclosing the initials 'S M', separated by a dark brown slip square. Round the sloping outer edge there is a border of dark brown triangles with comma-like ochre strokes in the spaces between them.
History note: Sotheby's, 17 ? November, 1913, lot 317; sold for £52 to Howgate. Frank Partridge, London, from whom purchased for £75 on 14 August 1916 by Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, FRS, Trinity College, Cambridge
Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest
Height: 8.8 cm
Width: 43 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928-12-07) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr
1720s
1730s
George I
George II
Circa
1720
CE
-
1740
CE
When sold in 1913, the initials on this dish were thought to be those of Samuel Meis or Mayer of the Cockpit Hill Pot Works in Derby. It was reattributed to North Staffordshire before Bernard Rackham produced his Catalogue of the Glaisher collection in 1935. Samuel Malkin’s identity is known from a dish in the British Museum which is decorated with a clock face and the words ‘Samuel Malkin/The maker/in burslam 17’, possibly made in 1712 as the clock’s hands point to twelve. The latest recorded dish bearing his initials is dated 1734, and he probably died in 1741. In 2008 Leeds Archaeological Fieldwork Society found fragments of sunflower tree dishes during a dig at the site of a pottery run by William Gough between 1739 and about 1775 at Crossgates, near Barnbow on the edge of Brown Moor in the parish of Barwick, near Leeds. . He employed potters from North Staffordshire, and archival sources show that Samuel Malkin junior (b. 1711 in Staffordshire), a mould maker had probably worked there as he was recorded at Brown Moor in 1745 and 1753 and at Whitkirk in 1744 and 1748. The pottery site was on the estate of the Gascoigne family of Barnbow Hall, and the pottery's position was confirmed by an estate map of 1772. This raises the possibility that some dishes of this design might have been made there.
Front
composed of
lead-glaze
Decoration
composed of
slip
Moulding : Buff earthenware press-moulded over a hump mould to produce a design in relief on the inside, coated with cream slip, and slip-trailed in dark ochre and dark brown slips under yellowish lead-glaze; the exterior is undecorated. The dish is circular with deep curved sides and a crinkled edge, produced by adjacent impressions made with an oval ended implement or stick
Inscription present: in rectangular frame with a dark brown square between the letters
Accession number: C.202-1928
Primary reference Number: 73019
Old object number: 4808
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "Sunflower Dish" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/73019 Accessed: 2025-03-26 08:19:11
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/73019
|title=Sunflower Dish
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-03-26 08:19:11|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-73019
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa7/C_202_1928_281_29.jpg"
alt="Sunflower Dish"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Sunflower Dish</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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