A fabulous arts & crafts tile, entirely
hand decorated on a hand made biscuit and of
totally exceptional quality throughout.
Fabulously handpainted in a good range of
brilliant glaze colours on the best handmade
biscuit I have ever seen. Six glaze colours (at
least) and fully handpainted. This are very
rare, very difficult to manufacture, very
expensive to manufacture tiles so rare that even
the most enthusiastic collector may never have
seen its like.
When viewing images on a screen they all look
similar in as much as screens emit light whereas
objects reflect light the differences in quality
of the surface are therefore misrepresented or
not apparent at all. For example it is difficult
to see the difference between a translucent
glaze and an opaque glaze onscreen. The image on
screen is static, when viewing an object in the
hand one naturally moves position a little (of
oneself or the object) thuse gaining perspective
and adding to the viewing pleasure, onscreen
shifting position will not add to the visual
input if anything will detract as most screens
image reproduction capabilities diminish when
viewed at an angle.
Due to the limitations of onscreen viewing we
automatically make assumptions, we compare the
image to similar objects that we have seen in
real life and make our judgment. These tiles can
produce an immediate like de Morgan' reaction
due to the full design and its free
interpretation however Wm de Morgan & Co
never produced any tiles by this technique, put
these amongst a collection of de Morgan tiles
and they will shine out for rather than being
underglaze painted and covered with a flat glaze
these are hand painted in glazes which is a
tremendously difficult technique and requires
incredible technical as well as artistic
skills.
Very few tile makers decorated in hand
painted glazes it was the most demanding of
techniques. Glazes of course melt in the kiln
and run together at times forming an unsightly
mess hence the popularity of cloisonné,
other moulding effects and tubeline techniques
to keep the glazes separate. All conditions had
to be perfect to produce glaze painted tiles,
the materials technology of the glazes, the
skill of the artist, the skill of the
kilnmaster. Such tiles were amongst the most
expensive of all around the turn of the
century.
Glaze colours tended to run in to each other
and so the range of colours used for this and
similar techniques is limited by the qualities
of the glazes. Usually limited to earth colours
these tiles have a great range from the blue
background, at least two greens, two golden
browns and pink. With all the colours in the
glazes which are highly translucent they look
even better in direct light, in sunlight they
are totally amazing, I am sure they would have
looked nearly as brilliant in firelight.
Few companies are recorded as using the glaze
painting technique, Maw & Co., Sherwin &
Cotton, Craven Dunnill, Richards, Marsden and
Wedgwood the latter apparently whilst associated
with Marsden. Most use a transfer printed
outline rather than the hand painted outline
used here, of course many companies glaze
painted with moulded, tubelined or slip-trailed
outlines. One of the first reactions is "William
de Morgan" yet these tiles surpass many of the
attributes of de Morgan tiles. De Morgan never
painted in glazes, far too difficult, the
company painted underglaze often using
transfers, the biscuit is of high quality
fireclay.
Verso completely plain save for number in
pencil indicating the position on the slab. A
very high quality fireclay, exceptional in my
experience, finely ground and without the lumpy
grog associated with fireclay tiles.
[1] Catleugh reports de Morgan
painting on to transfer papers page 142.
[2] Barnard reports de Morgan transfers
were painted in Italy on page 122.
