Crown Ducal & Charlotte Rhead Pottery: Charlotte Rhead tube-lined designs using more than one slip colour

Whilst gathering material for the post on stitched edged designs I got distracted into looking at Charlotte Rhead’s tube-lined designs that used more than one colour slip. I have a feeling that this may have been quite a big deal at the time. We know that pattern 3049 is Charlotte’s first design that uses more than one colour slip clay. The stitched edge Cotswold tableware in orange and black became a good long running seller, possibly in production for 20 years.

I think that Charlotte put a lot of effort into exploiting the success of this technique to create other designs with multiple slip colours. None of these efforts came close to the success of pattern 3049, but I think she was motivated by being able to produce a product her competitors could not match. In the 1930s the pottery companies were copying each others designs without let or hindrance. But surely Richardson’s must have had an edge when it came to tube-lining because of Charlotte’s clever designs and her team of tube-liners.

Bernard Bumpus discusses tube-lining with multiple colour slips clays in his article “Tube-line Variations” in the magazine, Antique Collector of December 1985. He reports how Jack Butler, who succeeded Frederick Rhead as art director at Woods in 1929, may have produced the Galleon charger using slip clay in three colours, (blue, black and brown). The charger is illustrated in the magazine and also a different example in plate 96 of "Collecting Rhead Pottery". The charger would have been made around 1930 and Charlotte would certainly have been aware of it and what other designers were producing with the tube-lining technique.

Jack Butler charger

Her role at Richardson’s was to produce commercial patterns rather than expensive art pottery, so she adapts the idea of multiple colour slip into a simple design that would not stretch the tube-liner too much and could produce it at an acceptable price. It does not appear that any other company was producing tube-lined tableware at this time. This is another example of Charlotte using her artistic skills and her team of tube-lining decorators to create a commercial success that Richardson’s competitors would find difficult to emulate.

Most of the 40-50 or so designs in the pattern books that use more that one slip colour are tableware. This is quite strange since tube-lined decoration is not resilient to the wear and tear of use especially with cutlery. Perhaps that is why the stitched edge Cotswold design was the only one that was popular and practical to use.

The patterns can be said to fit into 4 categories:

Tableware usually on the Cotswold or Queen Anne shape
The large salad bowls and platters for the USA market, (also referred to as punch bowls and 17” chargers)
Cabinet plates – ie tableware plates decorated with fancy designs for display only
Fancies using Charlotte Rhead’s typical shapes for tube-lined decorative ware

I do not intend to create a definitive list of all these patterns. Most of the tableware, especially those on the Queen Anne shape have not been seen. Below are those that went into production because they have been seen and photographed.

I have written about some of these patterns before in my post on stitched edge tableware. In particular there are comments about 3049, 3172, 3260 and notes on some of the as yet undiscovered designs.
https://rhead-crownducal.blogspot.com/2017/03/tube-lined-stitched-edged-tableware.html

3049 (Niva) Stitched edge in orange & black on Cotswold tableware and large salad bowls and platters.

Pattern 3049 Niva

3169 Tree centre with large stitched edge in orange & black on large salad bowls and platters.

Pattern 3169

3170 Dragon centre with large stitched edge in orange & black on large salad bowls and platters.

Charlotte Rhead Crown Ducal pattern 3170

3172 Tree centre with large stitched edge in Danube and matt blues & salmon on large salad bowls and platters. A special pattern because it is believed to be Charlotte's only Crown Ducal design with 3 slip colours.

Pattern 3172 Tree Centre

3187 Trailing feather in orange & black on Cotswold tableware. Probably a very difficult pattern to tube-line. Even though the design is simple it must have required a skillful hand to tube-line the second colour adjacent to the first.

Pattern 3187

3191 Galleon in Danube and matt blues on Cotswold tableware and large salad bowls and platters.

Pattern 3191 Galleon

3205 Trailing laurel border and dots in Danube and matt blues on large salad bowls and platters. The picture shows the same design in single colour black slip, the pattern number of which is unknown but demonstrates the design was produced. Pattern 3205 would look like the border of 3218.