The boyf gets in on the act

My other half is getting in on the Fat Lava act and came home from a Charity shopping trip with this little pot. I thought i'd take the pic in front of a line of books - just a subtle reminder of where his true collecting interests lie (just in case he feels the desire to wander again)

my dear lady disdain, are you yet living?

my dear blog readers, i feel i have been neglecting you; you probably thought i was dead. well, i'm sorry to disappoint, but i'm alive and kicking and have been busy collecting pots - sadly not all Powell Bishop & Stonier. But anyway, here is my latest Bisto addition: a chinoiserie design ginger jar, sans lid sadly, but i still love it.

truly bizarre

while having a mooch around t'internet this morning, i happened accross this page. How very bizarre. a chinese educational website which has a snippett from my blog entry about Louis Rhead. Fabulous!

ironstone v. earthenware ... the debate continues

Now, the cranberry red coffee pot you've seen before. But I have been delighted to add the turquoise version on the right to my collection this week. I hadn't done the measuring up when i bought it on Ebay, but had assumed it to be the same model as the red one. However, of course you can see from the pictures it is slightly smaller, leading me to the conclusion that one is perhaps a coffee pot and the other a teapot? Even though the turquoise version is smaller, it feels quite large for a tea pot; the height is quite deceptive when thinking about the volume of water it could hold as it is not very wide.

All supositions aside, they are both very lovely examples of Aesthetic Movement period design - heavily influenced by Japanese designs of birds on branches combined with more Western classical border motifs. What caught me off guard even more than the height discrepancy was the difference in materials. The seller hadn't mentioned what the turquoise pot was made from - i assumed it to be earthenware like its counterpart. But no, it is in fact made from Ironstone. This is not the first time I've come across the Powell Bishop & Stonier factory using the same moulds with different raw materials (see a previous blog posting about a jug and bowl set in a Celtic Revival style).

What is most apparent about the two types of ceramic body is that Ironstone, whist heavier and harder, is more suited to intricate moulding as it gives a much crisper result. Take a look at these close ups to see what I mean - the fineness of the moulded design is better achieved in Ironstone than in Earthenware, which tends to give a much softer result. The factory produced a lot of Ironstone wares for the export market - mainly plain wares, or in a simple gilt tea leaf pattern - but they seemed to discontinue with it from the 1880s onwards in favour of earthenware and then finer bone china. The tough ironstone wares were perhaps particularly suited to export as they would've survived the long sea journey more safely than earthenware ceramics.

Classical Elegance by Livesley Powell & co

Here is an example of the classical elegance of Mid 19th century design in the shape of a jug by the Livesley Powell & Co partnership. The combination of turquoise, gilt and a gorgeous cranberry red work wonderfully well together.

A fine lay

On doing a bit of internet surfing, i came across this wonderful set of egg cups and a stand. Marked as "BEST P&B", dating this piece to the late 1860s into the 1870s, it is decorated with a purplish transfer print design in typical Victorian fashion. The fact that this piece has survived with only minor blemishes is a marvel as their utilitarian purpose would mean that they were possibly used quite frequently.

Latest Acquisition

Here is my latest acquistion, filling a rather beautiful spot in my Bisto vase collection. It was mainly the colour that drew me to this pot I am rather happy with it. It's a great example of how Bishop & Stonier combined different techniques on one piece, in this instance: gilded areas, handpainted enamels and a stippled effect background. I'm unsure how this blue background was achieve, but it is a feature of several pieces in my collection. From what i know of 1920s/30s decorative ceramics, a couple of popular techniques were sponging the colour on and spray painting! Perhaps this is one or t'other. On close inspection, i don't think anyone, however passionate about Bisto wares, could argue that it was a fine work of art, but it's decorative appeal outways the few errors made by a paintress's unsteady hand.

When is a biscuit not a biscuit? When it's a Jaffa cake.

firstly, my apologies for such a small image - it was 'borrowed' - but i hope you get the idea. This is a biscuit barrel by Bishop & Stonier and would date from the early C20th. I have never seen such a thing by this company but it reminds me a lot of others from companies like Wiltshire & Robinson's Carlton Ware who readily used new materials like Chrome, silver plating and nickel plating for utilitarian wares such as canisters and biscuit barrels. This technique brought a bit of glamour to cheaper wares and imitated the look of real silver - no respectable middle class family would've been without one! On the subject of biscuits, did you know that in the UK, there is a higher tax on Biscuits than there is on cakes - something to do with perishability. bizarre.

Tiles R Us

I recently saw this wonderful tile, handpainted with a classical scene - perhaps Diana and cupid? On the back is the mark of BISTO (Bishop & Stonier) and it rather took me by surprise as i had no idea that they had produced tiles... or had they? Well, i'm going to reserve judgement about whether the factory did produce decorative tiles on any scale until i've come across more examples. My hunch is that like a dish i've just blogged about, the tile was possibly bought as a blank and decorated by someone unconnected with the factory to show off their artistic prowess. That's not to say that the factory didn't have competant artists who could've painted this tile, I just wonder if there was a market for it? Printed tiles, yes, but handpainted? That would take a lot of man hours and be costly to produce. Anyone got any more info on this, or perhaps a Bisto tile of your own in a cabinet? Do get in touch.

added 16.08.09 found these two transfer printed tiles on ebay and thought i'd share them. So it appears that the company did produce tiles in quantity.

top of the pots

A beautiful pair of vases with handcoloured, aesthetic transfer print designs sold on ebay this week for a fantastic $145 (£96). At almost £50 a pot i'd say that was a quite a good price for two small pieces - but as the experts always tell you on the Antiques Roadshow, pairs always sell better than single pots. Condition on these two was also very good and i'm sure who ever secured the winning bid on these will be delighted - they have very good taste!

PreRaphealite Stunner

This stunning dish recently came up for sale and sold for its maiden bid of £69.99 which to my mind has to be the bargain of the year. It's handpainted onto a basic charger type dish which has three looped feet to either stand it on a flat surface or, if you're feeling brave/reckless, hang it from a wall, perhaps with ribbon. Datewise it would be around the 1885-1900 point and was probably bought as a blank piece from Bisto to be decorated either at home by a talented amateur or perhaps by an art student at one of the great art schools of the day, maybe even in Burslem. This piece is so of its time and very accomplished. Notice in the background flower and foliate design, the motif of pomegranites and sunflowers, which is picked up on the woman's brooch. The William Morris and Arts & Crafts movement influence is clear as is the pre Raphaelite romantic vision. The colours are quite subdued but their restraint is very appealing.

Antiques Roadshow - Bath, 23rd April 2009

What a beautiful day out in Bath! Today, my better-half and I took ourselves off to Bath and another Antiques Roadshow valuation day. With all good intentions I set my alarm for 7am, hoping to leave by 7.30am, but we only just got out of Portsmouth at around 8.15am and straight into the rush hour traffic. Still, once we were onto the M27 it was quite a smooth journey along the A36 to wonderful Georgian Bath under a cloudless blue sky. So far we have been exceptionally lucky with the weather during our AR visits. After a minor mishap on arriving at the city - i mistakenly thought the roadshow was being held at the Bath Pump Rooms, but no, it was at the Assembly Rooms which was a bit of a climb up a hill - we joined the queue for the reception desk. People snaked around the building, all waiting for their first glimpse of the joys inside. The sun was beginning to beat quite hard by the time we actually got inside the building and my balding pate was glad of the respite undercover. All in all, it took just over 2 hours to get to the reception desk, the longest we've had to queue at a roadshow so far. But gladly, the individual queues to see specialists inside, weren't as bad as they could have been. It seemed that every major hitter expert from the show was there: Rupert Maas (art), Lars Tharp (ceramics), Eric Knowles (ceramics & glass), Hillary Kay (miscellaneous), David Battie (ceramics & orientalist works), Paul Atterbury (miscellaneous), Geoffrey Munn (jewellery), Christopher Payne (furniture)... Maybe it was because they live fairly local and all opted for Bath because it was easy to get to, or it was because they had anticipated great finds coming from the city's wealthy inhabitants? What ever the reason for the great turn out, it was fantastic to see them all there in the flesh - i had goose bumps and a massive grin when we were told to go and see David Battie at the ceramics table to show him what we'd brought along. My partner and I had in fact, taken along not just ceramics, but also some Chinese hand painted scenes on very fine paper and wood (which looks sheeny like silk). They weren't worth a fortune (£10 each), but were a good result for a £5 for-the-lot investment.

As for the ceramics, I took along a small hard-paste porcelain cup that I was curious about; it is not by any of the Powell Bishop and Stonier factories, but was made around 1810-20ish and possibly by Masons or Mayhew according to Mr Battie. As for my Bisto collection, I took along my India patterned vases, my framed Ogdens cigarette card of a Bisto pot and some bowls. One of which, he commented looked like the designs of Charles Voysey. If you search for an earlier post on this blog, I mentioned that it reminded me of the work of 'the four' - that is, Rennie Mackintosh and his group from the Glasgow school - there are similarities indeed with their work. With his suggestion in mind, I have contacted a society who study/celebrate Voysey's work with the hope that they may have some info as to whether he did any ceramics design. Who knows, he may have sent designs to Bishop & Stonier?

Credit Crunch? what Credit Crunch?

A retailer in the USA has been trying to sell this lidded jar by PB&S and retailed by Hendersons on Ebay. From the dimensions given, it's a pretty large piece and I have no idea what its intended use was, perhaps biscuits?. The 'buy it now' price is over a $1000us - could it be that the seller should stick to their guns and when the economy looks a little brighter, some eager collector may just dig deep in their pockets, or are they in cloud cuckoo land like Mr Brown thinking we can all spend our way out of this recession?

Home to roost

Conway patterned dish

Just lately, there has been a slew of beautiful Bisto pieces for sale on Ebay, and sadly i have missed out on all of them for one reason or another. On checking on the feedback of the winning bidders, it seems none of them has a history of buying Bishop & Stonier pieces so either they're new Bisto collectors, or they simply bought the pieces because they liked them for what they were and not who made them. I can't argue with that now, can I? But I am starting to get a bit anxious and tetchy that I'm being out bid on more and more auction delights. It could simply be a sign of global economics and my Pound isn't worth what it used to be, or, there truly are more and more Bisto buyers out there of late. Is my proseletysing finally paying off? Indeed, are my chickens coming home to roost? Will all my blogging and shouting about Bisto actually mean that I end up sleeping in a Bisto-less bed because I've been priced out of the market by the Bisto-Collecting-Monsters that I have created - made irrelevant and killed off by my own Bisto kids? AAaarrrggghh

1930s Bisto teapot a beautiful miniatre vase from the Edwardian period

A handpainted plate from a set of similar plates with views, this one being Derwentwater.

Athena patterned two-handled cup (possibly a chocolate cup) and saucer.

West German Pottery vs Kilrush

Well, the plot thickens! On flicking through the April 2009 edition of the BBC Homes & Antiques Magazine I found a most intriguing development to the WGP vs Kilrush question. In their readers letters section, a Mr Gordon Morley had sent in a query about a vase in his collection, numbered on the base 105/24. The expert, Will Farmer, told him in reply that it was by E. S. Keramik, a Post War German piece, and valued around £30-40. If i hadn't only just posted a blog entry about a very similar pot, i wouldn't have paid much attention. But the vase from the magazine is clearly by the same designer and company as the Kilrush jug i mentioned only the other day. Now, how do i know that the jug was by Kilrush and not E.S.Keramik? Well, it was sold on Ebay recently and the seller said that it had a stamp underneath that said it was by Kilrush. So, Mr Farmer, we have an impass it seems. Unless, one or other of these factories imported each other's work and sold it as their own? Does anyone have any more light to shed on this mystery?

Dare I wander from the path of righteousness?

Regular visitors to my blog will know that i have recently been tempted by the Dark Side, that is, to start a collection of pottery that is not by Bishop & Stonier et al. I admit to having picked up the odd piece of pottery here and there that just takes my fancy, from various factories, but until now i have resisted the temptation of starting a secondary collection of ceramics - mainly due to the fact that there are so many great potteries and ceramic artists works out there that i like. Well, after mistaking a piece of Kilrush ceramic for West German Pottery, I decided to investigate the pottery further. Wouldn't you know it, there really is very little on the net about it and only a handful of pieces for sale on sites like Ebay. But here for your consideration are a few pieces by Kilrush which I'm sure you will agree, do bear a striking similarity to the wares coming out of contemporary West German factories. I must say, i like the simplicity and colours of these pots far more than the WGP though.

This is such a stylish piece - i love it.

what do you call a gathering of dragons?

Here is my collection of Bisto ware that have decorated with Dragons. This led me to thinking what one might call a group of Dragons: a pride, a party, a swarm, a school, a herd? I have heard the term, "a nest of dragons", but that suggests the place a mother hatches her young, but doesn't really work in this situation. Maybe there is no word for a group of them, perhaps they've always been regarded as solitary creatures. No matter, they look fabulous grouped together here.

being drawn to the Dark Side

i recently mentioned how i'd found the pottery and glass forum, via Mark Hill's blog. Well, from what i can gather, most, if not all of its regular contributers are mad keen on West German Pottery (WGP) and rate it highly as a collectible that is going places (particularly in terms of value). Mark Hill has written on the subject and there has been an exhibition to showcase the out put of West German pottery manufacturers - predominantly of the 50s, 60s, 70s. Well, i swore to myself that i would not be drawn in any further than the one WGP vase i already owned. But i'm afraid i have succumbed. Above is my collection of 4 WGP pieces, but i "promise", that's it now... no more... ...... ............ ........ err....

things that go bump in the night

I have a number of candlesticks and chambersticks in my collection and was happy this week to be able to add another pair to my shelves. This set of Oriental Ivory, Aesthetic movement candlesticks was made in the 1880s. They have a strange confection of aesthetic period motifs transfer printed and hand enamelled on the surface. Here also are a few close-ups of the insects and flowers depicted on them. I have to admit, of all the animal kingdom, insects are my least favourite, and mosquitos alongside wasps have to be the most loathsome creatures made by God (he must've been having an "off" day).

spreading my ceramic wings

I've been away from my blog for a few days and surfing around various pottery and collectors' sites. After visiting Mark Hill's blog, i found a link to the amazing pottery and glass forum. Some of you may have already found it and will have been chatting on there for ages, but for newbies like me it has been a revelation... Yes, i REALLY am, not the only ceramics geek/freak in the village! Another link for you is the blog of one collector/dealer in Reading. His specialism is Mid 20th century design (so a bit late for any Bisto collectors) and he looks really cool! http://mid20c.blogspot.com/ .