Greystone glaze

This post records the Crown Ducal patterns that used the “Greystone” glaze. A white and grey mottle, high gloss glaze much favoured by Charlotte Rhead and used for some of her most popular tube-lined designs. Early references in Crown Ducal documents call the glaze “grey mottle”, but it gets renamed later to Greystone.

The grey mottle, Greystone glaze

Not many patterns have this glaze, although collectors will be familiar with the five tube-lined patterns, Patch 4015, Blue Peony 4016, Persian Rose 4040, Persian Leaf 5391 and Caliph 5411. Or if you are very lucky you may have acquired one of the various special colour variations of Persian Leaf that appear from time to time.

Tube-lined designs by Charlotte Rhead with the Greystone glaze

Another of her designs for fancies was 3728 and this is believed to be the first use of the glaze. It is not tube-lined but has enamelled leaves and bands in pink with gold lines and detail. Bernard Bumpus mistakenly recorded the pattern number as 5728 but it is described and illustrated in his book.

There is another simple design, number 3774 with green bands and copper lines, but I have yet to see an example. The next pattern for fancies with Greystone glaze and yet to be found is 4534. Some will recognise it as HJ Woods Bursley Ware pattern TL2. Bumpus has pictures of TL2 in his book and he also records the entry 4534 as a Crown Ducal Rhead pattern. Although the patterns are virtually identical, there is no mention of tube-lining in the Crown Ducal pattern books, We will just have to wait until one turns up to inspect it! As an aside, regarding the design, an early tube-lined prototype exists with different top and bottom border motifs and glazed more like Byzantine 2681.

The final entry for fancies, and again as yet unseen, is 6065. It is a freehand floral design of simple trailing green leaves and scarlet and purple flowers with black tracery for the stems.

I have found nine entries for tableware with the glaze:

• 3781 Cotswold shape, pink band, gold line
• 3798 Cotswold shape, pale and dark crimson brown bands
• 3932 No2 shape, gold rim up to embossment, crimson brown and pink lines
• 3976 No1 shape, green band, gold edge
• 4004 No3 shape, dentilled edge in two greens and green leaf motif on shoulder
• 4005 No2 shape verge embossment picked out in enamels, gold edge
• 4172 No2 shape with “Charm” floral transfer in centre, gold edge
• 4194 No1 shape with feather and dot motif in verge
• 4202 No2 shape with print and enamel floral design

Only the last entry, number 4202 has been seen to date, so I do not think it was a popular glaze for tableware.


Pattern 4202, a print and enamel tableware design with Greystone glaze

I have not found any direct evidence that the glaze is her invention, but Charlotte was fond of using this glaze. The earliest designs with it are either definitely hers or have motifs associated with her, so there is the possibility she had a hand in its creation. Support for this comes from the annotation in the pattern book for 3781, which says "See Miss Rhead". This design is not illustrated, but could be a tableware version of pattern 3728, perhaps without the leaf motif. Also, designs 4004 and 4194 incorporate leaf or feather motifs known to be hers.

Now for the inspiration that made me look at Greystone glaze. A 14" charger with freehand enamelled decoration. No pattern number and it is not recorded in the Crown Ducal documents I have seen. The charger has the typical backstamp style that was used during the period 1935-1938. I am bound to say that the design feels very much like the work of Charlotte Rhead.

14" charger freehand enamelled design with Greystone glaze

Pattern detail on charger

Looking at the design and colours, the rim decoration of paired coloured lines reminds me of Omar 4036 and Basket 6198. The leaves are simplified versions from Blue Peony 4016. The colour palette is the same as Patch 4015, with the addition of the blue from Blue Peony. And of course, Greystone glaze. It is a lovely balanced design and worthy of having Charlottes name associated with it.

Those are the Greystone glaze patterns, but Charlotte returns to the glaze style in 1940 with her Trellis patterns, 6016 and 6017. Not Greystone, but Brownstone, and this is the name documented with the design. A series of pottery baskets were made with Brownstone glaze too, some with the Pinafore transfer, 6036-6039 and some without, 6058-6061.


Detail of Trellis 6016 with Brownstone glaze

Pattern 6069 is the Brownstone glaze with green rims top and bottom and with the small Pinafore floral transfers for fancies. If you are unsure what the Pinafore transfer looks like there is a picture that shows them in a previous post about the Premier shape:
http://rhead-crownducal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/crown-ducal-tableware-shape-premier-or.html

The same blend of Brownstone glaze, green rims and detail together with Pinafore transfers was applied to the Gordon shape tableware. The baskets, vases and tableware occasionally appear for sale at auction, but they rarely get noticed.

Drawing to a close with a poignant observation. The last numbered pattern in the surviving Crown Ducal pattern books, (before the book gets used for other purposes), is number 6367. It is exactly the same as pattern 6069, but not with Brownstone, it has Greenstone glaze. It would be good to think that Charlotte was experimenting to the end. This would be the early summer of 1941. The government had initiated restrictions on pottery manufacture in March 1941 and further restrictions on decorated pottery would soon come into force. Employees were already leaving to work for the war effort and Charlotte's departure from the company was imminent.

There are a couple of tube-lined patterns, 6567 and 6659 that have Greystone glaze but were not produced until Charlotte had left the company. It is difficult to date these designs, (best guess is 1942), but they were almost certainly made while the Board of Trade restrictions were in force. A high proportion of examples are found in Australia and New Zealand which is to be expected as decorated pottery was destined for the export market.

It is not quite the end though, just as I said in my post on Snow glaze that Charlotte took it with her to Woods, you can see the reinvented Greystone glaze on many of her Bursley Ware patterns. It is different, the grey is more subtle, but this is still Charlotte's Greystone glaze!

BursleyWare TL.43 & TL.65 with a softer version of the Greystone glaze

Edited 19th March 2019 to remove invalid links.

Print & enamel decoration in the 1930s

The print and enamel method was one of Crown Ducal's most popular decorating styles. The examples shown here are mostly of tableware from the 1930’s, but the company used the technique throughout its history for decorative items in addition to tableware.

Print and enamel decoration was a cost effective way of decorating pottery. The basic pattern was printed on to the unglazed earthenware, and the enamels applied to fill in as much or as little of the pattern that was required. This was much quicker that freehand painting of the entire design and obviously much cheaper to produce. The print would have to be under-glaze, but the enamels could be under-glaze, on-glaze, or both.

Below are some pictures showing the detail from a Crocus 5649 charger. The brown coloured outlines, petal and leaf infill details are printed, while the orange, scarlet and green are hand painted enamels.



Detail from Crocus 5649 charger



 Detail from Crocus 5649 charger

The process first requires the design to be engraved onto a copper plate. The copper plate is inked and overlain with sized paper, the sizing keeps most of the ink on the surface of the paper rather than it being absorbed. The paper print is peeled from the copper and then pressed onto the pottery. The inked design transfers onto the surface of the pot and the paper is removed by washing.

Picture from G Forsyth's book "Art and Craft of the Potter"

What gave me the notion to write about printed decoration at Crown Ducal was the discovery of a factory “sampler” with a print design in several print colours on a 10 inch diameter Windsor shaped plate. On the shoulder of the plate are segments of the same print in different colours. Each colour is labelled with an abbreviation of its name in the verge of the plate.

I hoped that I might be able to trawl through the pattern books to try and identify all the print colours used. Occasionally the Crown Ducal documents record specific colours by manufacturer and catalogue number so the idea is not as daft as it seems. The designers tended to use a small range of colours for printing and therefore if names could be matched to well known patterns then finding an example of each might be possible. Sadly I have only been partially successful, but it has been an interesting exercise and there is still scope to discover more information.

The list of colour names on the plate are:
H. Days
2693
P. Grey
Black
Grey
P. Willow
H, Blue
A. Green
G. Brown
S. 4769
Pink

So starting with with the first half of the plate from the left, clockwise:

H. Days

Happy Days 2545 printed in Happy Days Brown

A mid–brown colour, one of the easiest to identify as it must refer to Happy Days, 2545, one of Crown Ducals most successful patterns of the early 1930s. I do not have an example of the pattern myself, but I received this image via correspondence through the www.rhead-crownducal.info website.

Charlotte Rheads interpretation of Happy Days printed and enamelled in the same colours, Pattern 4820

It is interesting to note that Charlotte Rhead used exactly the same colours for one of her own print and enamel patterns, 4820. The pattern book describes the design as “Breedon pattern but colouring as Happy Days and finished as Happy Days”, implying the same print and enamel colours

2693

Another mid-brown colour. There are tableware patterns that are printed with “Cottons Vellum Brown 2693”, so I am sure that is the link. The few references I have found are for prints of complex floral designs with some flowers and leaves enamelled. They have Cotswold or Florentine shape and most have yellow glaze which is unusual. I have not recorded an actual example yet.

P. Grey

Pattern 5180 printed in pastel grey

Orchard 5287 printed in pastel grey

Bouquet 5413 printed in pastel grey

Almost certainly P. Grey stands for Pastel Grey which is one of the more common print colours and is believed to have been made by Meyer & Swann, (I may have the spelling wrong I cannot find any mention of the company on the internet or in what Pottery Gazettes I have of the period). I have three examples that use this colour, A tea plate in pattern 5180 and a demitasse duo in the Orchard pattern, number 5287 and a demitasse duo in Bouquet, 5413.

Black

Black was a more popular printing colour in the 1920s and was used for most of the Norman Keats designs like Red Tree, 1211. Crown Ducal did not use it much in the 1930s, the only example I have is for the smokers set in gold and yellow colour, 4099A.

Pattern 4099A printed in black

Grey

Sunburst 2649 printed in Baines 5753

Pattern 2913 printed in Baines 5753

Crocus 4722 printed in Baines 5753

Bewdley 5646 printed in Baines 5753

Grey seems too ambiguous to define, but is actually quite easy. Probably the most popular print colour, it is referred to as either Sunburst grey, after the popular design, or Baines 5753. Fortunately some designs refer to both names and examples side by side appear to be the same. It is easy to find several examples; Sunburst, 2649; 2913, Crocus, 4722 and Bewdley, 5646,

P.Willow

Pussy Willow 3750 printed in Pussy Willow brown

Pussy Willow 3792 printed in Pussy Willow brown

Pattern 5178 printed in Pussy Willow  brown

 Pattern 5182 printed in Pussy Willow  brown

Like Happy Days brown here is a print colour named after the pattern it is originally associated with, Pussy Willow Brown. It became quite a popular print colour but I can find no reference to the manufacturers name or colour code, perhaps it is a Crown Ducal blend of two colours to make their own shade. Shown here are the two tableware versions of Pussy Willow, 3750 & 3792 , together with two decorative tea plate designs, 5178 & 5182.

The second half of the plate:

H. Blue

H. Blue is probably Harrisons Blue. Which is not very helpful as there were two used, Royal Blue 3299 and Cobalt Blue 1297. I am tempted to say it is Royal Blue, but cannot be sure and I have yet to see examples of either.

A. Green

Best guess is that this is Hancocks Apple Green. Another uncommon printing colour and one I do not have an example to show.

G. Brown

There is a good chance the G. Brown represents Hancocks Golden Brown. It was used quite a lot but not on common patterns or any example I have to show. The most likely examples to be seen are the plain pictorial prints, (without enamels), particularly those of Winston Churchill and the Bombed Buildings of London scenes produced in 1941-1942.

S. 4769

Another disappointment, I have not been able to find any reference to this colour number or any pattern printed in this type of blue. Also, not sure what the S stands for but could possibly be the ink manufacturing company such as Sneyd or Swann.

Pink

Dell 5636 printed in Blythe pink 8004

There are not many patterns printed in pink, but the few that are recorded appear to use the colour Blythe Pink 8004. One of these is Dell, 5636, designed and etched by Charlotte Rhead. There were other pink printing colours used by Crown Ducal from the Sneyd company but these only seem to be mentioned very early in the 1930s, for example when the pink version of the Bristol pattern was introduced.

Those are the print colours from the sampler plate.  But to show more print and enamel designs, here are pictures of Charlotte Rheads trio of print and enamel designs Ellesmere 4009, Wenlock 4010 and Breedon 4011.

Ellesmere was printed in Hancocks grey, whilst Wenlock and Breedon were printed in E544 Brown.

Ellesmere, 4009 printed in Hancocks grey

Wenlock 4010, printed in E544 brown

Breedon 4011, printed in E544 brown

And for those not fussed with tableware , but prefer their ceramics on the wall, here are some print and enamel chargers.

Pussy Willow 5302, printed in Pussy Willow brown

Pussy Willow 5383, printed in Pussy Willow brown

Crocus 5649 printed in Pussy Willow brown

Floretta 5981, printed in Sunburst grey, ( Baines 5753)

To close, I think there may be more to be documented on the print colours used by the company. It would be good to see if the majority of generic annotations of grey, brown, green etc, could be attributed to specific ceramic printing inks. The biggest problem would be to lay hands on physical examples of all the printed patterns so they could be compared side by side. That is unlikely ever to happen!

Snow Glaze (Book Update 1)

This post is especially for those who bought my book on the Crown Ducal snow glaze patterns. I always intended to provide an update should any new material come to light and this blog provides the easiest place to share it. Thank you to those who purchased the book and to contributors who came forward with new discoveries and information.

1. An unrecorded pattern with the Wincoma lithograph.



Unknown pattern number - Wincoma lithograph from the UTC on snow glaze

This was a lucky find on ebay, a couple of items in snow glaze with the Wincoma floral transfer border from the Universal Transfer Company. The two shapes are typical of the shape range used for the Princess commemorative patterns 5268 and 5269, so at the time it was uncertain if this design would be found on a full range of tableware. Then a few months later someone kindly contacted me with pictures of Victory oval shape serving platters, Regent shaped covered serving dishes and some plates. So it is now certain that the Wincoma lithograph was used in conjunction with the snow glaze for tableware.

There are references in the pattern books for the Wincoma transfer on various tableware shapes, Cotswold, Victory, Queen Anne, Avon and Regent but no mention of its use with snow glaze. So the pattern number remains unknown but the standard snow glaze backstamp confirms that it would have been designed and made in the 1930s prior to World War II.

2. Examples of pattern 5032 discovered.



Examples of pattern 5032 in green and blue slip



Pattern 5032 in yellow slip

These were rather special discoveries for me because pattern 5032 is believed to be the only known tube-lined, snow glaze tableware pattern designed by Charlotte Rhead. And, not only does it tick all those Crown Ducal boxes, the design also employs the decorating technique of sponged slip clay. The coloured centres are not enamel colour but the same material as the tube-lining slip,  sponged onto the plate centres and cup interiors.

Several examples of tea service items in pattern 5032 have now been reported, in blue, green and yellow slip colours. All examples so far have been located in Australia and New Zealand. The fern leaves are very intricate so I presume these would have been quite expensive to produce. The fern is sometimes used as a national emblem in New Zealand so it may not be a coincidence that most examples have been found there. Perhaps the design was especially commissioned for retailers in New Zealand. The pattern book has it illustrated in pink slip but does mention that it was also executed in green, yellow and blue.

Edit 28th January 2017
There is new information regarding pattern 5032, please see:
https://rhead-crownducal.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/snow-glaze-book-update-2.html

3. Notes on who photographed the Princesses.

In the book I wrote that the lithographs for patterns 5268 and 5269 are derived from photographs by Vandyk. My source of information is the Pottery Gazette, June 1937, page 797, which refers to the photographs used by Crown Ducal and reports, “It is only necessary to add that the portraits are by Vandyke to assure the trade that no effort has been spared to realise the height of perfection as regards the faithfulness of the likenesses”.

I see that in the 2012 Miller’s Collectibles Handbook the photographs are attributed to Marcus Adams. Certainly Marcus Adams took many photographs of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, but so did other photographers. The hairstyles of the princesses are distinctive but if one looks through The Royal Collection archives on the Internet their style stayed constant for a couple of years which means that almost any head only portrait from that time will look quite similar to another. I have informed the publishers of Miller’s Collectibles of the error.

4. Under-glaze and on-glaze versions of the same pattern.

 

Nome pattern 4616. Left, on-glaze enamels and right, under-glaze enamels



Close inspection of two tea cups in the Nome pattern, (4616), has revealed that some under-glaze patterns were also produced with on-glaze decoration. The cup on the left has on-glaze enamels and the right is under-glaze. Patterns 4614, 4615, 4616, 4617, 4618 & 4623 were all explicitly recorded in the pattern books with enamels under-glaze and so closer attention will need to be paid when inspecting these designs.

I have on-glaze and under-glaze examples in the Nome pattern so this is clearly not a one-off mistake but probably a change in the design. My understanding is that from a ceramic design and quality perspective, under-glaze decoration is regarded as superior. However, for practical reasons when manufacturing for the mass market on-glaze decoration was more efficient. The advantage of under-glaze decoration is its permanence and the beauty of the reaction between the colours and the glaze. The downside is that colour decoration onto the biscuit pottery is indelible, so mistakes cannot be corrected and might result in wastage or too many seconds. In a busy factory where speed and volume of production was important, together with Charlottes high quality standards perhaps her design ethic had to be compromised a little to ensure a viable production line.

5. Did Charlotte take snow glaze with her to H J Wood Ltd for her Bursley Ware?



Bursley Ware pattern TL12

Surely anyone who handles a Bursley Ware object in pattern TL12 would agree that it has snow glaze. This table lamp has a very smooth glaze finish yet has that silky look and feel similar to the Crown Ducal snow glaze tableware productions that were much smoother than the bumpy texture found on fancies. Perhaps we should not call it snow glaze, but this is typical Charlotte Rhead recycling her favourite motifs and successful styles. In a way this confirms that Charlotte made snow glaze her own, because I have yet to find evidence that Richardsons made any items with snow glaze after World War II. This is snow glaze reborn.

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If anyone would like to purchase a copy of the book - there are still some available. Please email me for details.



Crown Ducal Snow Glaze Tableware and Decorative Pottery



Self published, small print run and not distributed to bookshops or Amazon, so no point in waiting for them to turn up there!

• Crown Ducal Snow Glaze Tableware and Decorative Pottery
• by Ian Newton
• Format: A5 paperback , 52 pages
• ISBN 9780957146501
   
  
  Edited 19th March 2019 to remove invalid links.