Autumn foliage jardinière: C.7-1980

Titles

Autumn foliage jardinière

Maker(s)

Pottery: Doulton & Co.

Entities

• Jardinière
• plant pot

Categories

• Stoneware
• Salt-glazed stoneware
• Art Pottery
• Doulton Lambeth ware

Description

Stoneware jardinière, decorated with impressed leaves, painted and salt-glazed.

A large, thrown, stoneware pot, the sides of which curve upwards and outwards in a convex curve from the base, contracting at the top into a short, cylindrical neck. The sides are decorated with the impression of four laurel leaf sprays, filled with shades of olive-green and brown, which appear to float in the sky. The background is thinly painted in blue, over a cream-grey ground covered with a raised leaf pattern. The neck is painted inside and out in mottled blue and olive-green; there is a raised brown band where it joins the body, matching a thin brown ring which forms the foot. The interior is unpainted and lightly glazed at the bottom. The underside is flat and unglazed, except for the rim.

Notes

History note: Purchased as furnishing at an unrecorded date and accessioned in 1980.

Place(s) associated

• Lambeth ⪼ Middlesex ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bought by Unknown

Dating

20th Century, Early
Edwardian
Circa 1902 CE - 1922 CE

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Doulton and Co, founded c.1815, originally made utility ceramics, with some stoneware jugs and ornamental bottles.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; over the next 50 years, he employed some 400 artists, many of them Lambeth School of Art students. Doulton championed individuality, innovation and versatility, and his modellers and decorators used a wide range of techniques and decorative treatments in producing 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. Stoneware production at Lambeth reduced after 1914, and ceased in 1956.

This is an example of Doulton's 'Autumn Foliage Ware', originally known as 'repoussé ware'. Real leaves were pressed into the soft clay and then removed to leave a faithful impression; autumn tints were used for the colouring, often with a mottled background. The technique, mainly used for planters, bulb-bowls and vases but also on other items, was popular and large numbers of Autumn Foliage pieces were produced between 1883 and c.1914, and a few later examples up to the 1950s. The impressed number on this example indicates that it is series ware. Doulton made a wide variety of series ware fern and flower pots from c.1875-1915, limited editions designed by a senior artist and executed by assistants in quantities of a few dozen up to c.1,000. The circle, lion and crown mark indicates that this jardinière was made between 1902 and c.1922.

School or Style

Art Pottery