A swirling floral design, one may see art
nouveau in it but similar designs were created
in the early 1890s with varying degrees of
movement in the elements as one would expect
with any group of floral designs. It is
unfortunate that the stem is not coloured or the
background glaze with stronger colour so that
the relief shows, I've seen a handfull of groups
of this design similarly decorated and can't
recall a coloured line or background
example.
So rather quirky, and with a nice bold flower
and lively foliage.
Verso very clean, unmarked.
Provenance the sale at Wormington Grange:
This is arguably the most important
collection of English country house furniture to
come to auction in recent decades. A classic
country house conglomeration which, in the best
tradition of these old-school sales, is both
eclectic and curated all at once.
The home until recently of John Evetts - the
grandson of Lord Ismay, Sir Winston Churchill's
famed military strategist - it is sure to be
bursting at the seams with historical treasures,
not least because Evetts' day job was furnishing
the homes of the Landmark Trust.
'I collected everything that is in this sale
specifically for this house with an enormous
amount of care and love,' Evetts said of the
auction. 'I wanted to turn it into a home that
was furnished very much as it might have been at
the time it was built.'
Article
about the sale in Tatler, article
about the sale in Daily Mail
And so there was some discussion as to why Mr
Evetts would collect a comparatively ordinary
selection of tiles, I believe the answer to be
more prosaic than that many of the collection of
tiles were simply those removed from the house
over the last century.
The most updated fixtures in houses are
sanitary wares, fireplaces and cooking
appliances and spaces, most of the tiles came
from hearths and some originated in washstands.
Fireplaces would have been updated as originals
wore out and new technology offered better
solutions, not in the state rooms of course
where the originals would be preserved and
rarely used, but in the day to day rooms. The
washstand tiles most likely came from
redecorations, quite some years ago now the main
reason for people selling washstands was that
the colour of the tiles did not match the new
decor, in such a fine house there would be a
tradesman readily available to fit new tiles in
to existing furniture and so the removed tiles
were stored, in the attic, cellar, stable block
or elsewhere on the estate.
