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.

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.

Pattern 3205

3212 Alternate lines in orange & black on Cotswold tableware.

Pattern 3212

3218 Blossom centre with trailing laurel border and dots in Danube and matt blues on large salad bowls and platters.

Pattern 3218 Blossom

3257 Blossom centre with large stitched edge in Danube and matt blues on large salad bowls and platters.

Pattern 3257 Blossom

3258 Blossom centre with large stitched edge in orange & black on large salad bowls and platters.

Pattern 3258 Blossom

3260 Florentine centre, intertwined stems and dentilled edge in Danube and matt blues on No3 cabinet plate.

Pattern 3260

3582 Y shaped edge motif edge in orange & black on Queen Anne tableware.

Pattern 3582

3584 (Perth) Scrolls and stars in orange & black on Queen Anne tableware.

Pattern 3584 Perth

4517 (Blossom) in Danube and matt blues with off blue glaze on fancies.

Pattern 4517 Blossom

4538 (Blossom) in Danube and matt blues with snow glaze on fancies.

Pattern 4538 Blossom

4898 Paired short lines in orange & black on Cotswold tableware.

Pattern 4898

4901 Dot & dash line in orange & black on Cotswold tableware.

Pattern 4901

4902 Wavy lines and dots orange & black on Cotswold tableware.

Pattern 4902

Arcadian Glazes, Dripware & Mottled Glazes

I recently came across a Crown Ducal dripware glazed vase. Although I do not collect these I usually look closely to see if I can find an example that matches the descriptions in the Crown Ducal pattern books. The glaze on this one matched the description and picture for Glaze No. 84.

The vase will date to 1940/1942 because it has the AGR7 type backstamp but the style is a reprise of the Arcadian Glazes range from Crown Ducal in 1929.

I have not found any pattern numbers for the Arcadian Glazes and later dripware productions of the 1930s & 1940s and so they are quite difficult to catalogue. But there are 11 pages in one of the Crown Ducal pattern books that document “Mottled Glazes Etc.” from Nos. 10 to 95. The notes for each glaze vary from nil to a brief description specifying glaze names and method of application. There are a few watercolour sketches for some of the glazes and this is where I was lucky with my purchase as it is one of the few illustrated ones.

Below are images of the vase and also a picture file of the transcribed list of “Mottled Glazes” from the Crown Ducal pattern book. You will probably need to save the list image in order to read it. The first column is the pattern book glaze number. The second column is whether or not there is small water colour sketch of the design. The description is my best attempt to try and transcribe the pencil annotations.

Glaze No. 84 on a shape 173 vase

List of mottled glazes as transcribed from Crown Ducal pattern book

Back to the beginning of the story, the ‘Arcadian Glazes’ range of dripware from Crown Ducal was introduced in the October 1929 edition of the Pottery Gazette.

The typically verbose and enthusiastic writing about the ware begins as follows:

"A. G. Richardson & Co.,, Ltd., Gordon Pottery, Tunstall, whose new London showroom at 46, Holborn Viaduct, E. C. 1, in control of Green Bros. & Edis, is now open, replete with a full range of the company’s appealing productions in all departments, have brought out quite recently a really admirable series of broken and variegated glaze effects in harmonious colourings, to be known under the name of “Arcadian Glazes.” On the production of lines such as these, as an adjunct to their staple trade in useful and decorative tablewares, the firm in question are to be warmly congratulated, for although the new art glazed wares are of a high order, portraying characteristics which exemplify sound technique, the prices at which they are being offered to the trade are unquestionably reasonable. We think we are justified in emphasising the fact that the new decorations, although they are undoubtedly the result of playful manipulations of colour amalgams, are in no sense to be regarded as “amateurish”; nor are they likely to prove of an ephemeral order, for they are distinctive and dignified, and worthy of being allotted a leading place in the display of any good-class china shop."

The article goes on at some length in the same vein with the only significant point of interest being that the Arcadian Glazes are likely to be good sellers for the 1929 Christmas trade, beyond and for the overseas market too. The image from the Pottery Gazette is reproduced below.

The "Arcadian Glazes" from the Pottery Gazette

Below is an illustrated advertisement from The Sphere newspaper of 1932. It is part of a larger feature advertisement for Crown Ducal being sold at the Harrods department store. It is helpful that the shapes can be identified and that the prices are included.

Arcadian Glazes being promoted at Harrods in The Sphere of 9 November 1932

Because I have no collection of Arcadian glazed pots I will use images found from searching the net. I hope the owner of these two pictures does not mind me reusing them, they clearly have a collecting passion for the subject.

Arcadian Glazes

If you have been able to save and view the list of mottled glazes you will find that vases 3 & 6, (from the left) on the bottom row in the picture above are most likely to be Glaze No. 13 (Blue 6336 & Flame 1180).

Arcadian Glazes

Likewise vases 3 & 4, (from the left) on the top row in the picture above are most likely to be Glaze No. 19 (Flame 1180 & Green 6444).

Those are two easy ones but after that it becomes quite hard to link decoration with text which is rather ambiguous. To pursue this as a project one would need to incorporate known information from the main pattern books, where very occasionally these mottled glaze numbers are used in the description of individual patterns.

These are ones that I have found:

Glaze 60 used for pattern 4964
A freehand enamelled fancy, illustrated as a jug vase in shape 226/227/228/X8 style. The design is the inverted border of Charlotte's Arabian scroll pattern with green spout, bands and handle, scarlet and orange arches and blue circles. The vase rims are dashed and a row of Charlotte's painted stitches below the lower band.

Glaze 61 used for pattern 4963
A freehand enamelled fancy, illustrated as a jug vase in shape 245. Like above. The design is the inverted border of Charlotte's Arabian scroll pattern with blue bands and handles, puce and orange arches and pink and orange circles. The vase rims are dashed and a row of Charlotte's painted stitches below the lower band.

Glaze 62 used for pattern 4962
A freehand enamelled fancy, illustrated as a jug vase in shape X20 style. Like above. The design is the inverted border of Charlotte's Arabian scroll pattern with orange spout and handles, green bands, blue and orange arches and green and scarlet circles. The vase rims are dashed and a row of Charlotte's painted stitches below the lower band.

Glaze 64 used for pattern 5650
A difficult to find tube-lined design by Charlotte Rhead which in the past I have called "Abstract Trellis" but I may need to rename it as the phrase "Tube Lined Check" occurs both in the numbered pattern book and the glaze pattern book. The description for Glaze 65 where the green only occurs as the inside rinse, or the base of chargers more accurately describes the known examples of pattern 5650. Of the few examples I have seen, none had green on the outside or face of the design. As an aside, the designer of The Bowes Museum display catalogue, (2018) chose the charger centre of pattern 5650 for the front cover. Maybe not typical Charlotte Rhead style but definitely striking!

Glaze 65

Glaze 72 used for pattern 6063
A freehand enamelled fancy, illustrated as a vase in shape 133/129 style. The design is of a small branch with  green leaves turning orange-brown.

Glaze 72 used for pattern 6189
The popular tube-lined design by Charlotte Rhead No. 6189 "Mexican".

Glaze 72 used for pattern 6198
Another tube-lined design by Charlotte Rhead No. 6198 "Basket". 

Glaze 78 used for pattern 5981
A print and enamel design almost certainly by Charlotte Rhead  for fancies "Floretta". A colourful glaze that Charlotte tried to use with tube-lined designs. The most notable being the "Iris" charger but also with a variation of the "Persian Leaf/Taragona" patterns. I have discussed the use of this glaze in a previous post. https://rhead-crownducal.blogspot.com/2013/08/charlotte-rhead-iris-charger.html

Interestingly, the only example I know of pattern 5650, with the pattern number on the base, which should use glaze 64 or 65 is in fact decorated with Glaze 78.

Various items that use Glaze 78

Glaze 79 used for pattern 5982
Another tube-lined design by Charlotte Rhead No. 5982 "Circular Fruits".

Glaze 83 used for pattern 6068
A freehand enamelled fancy, illustrated as a vase in shape 133/129 style. The design is of  a flock of flying birds in a V formation with cloud outlines behind.

Since the glazes are not illustrated in the main pattern books the above descriptions are only of much use when an example has been seen. So glazes 64, 65, 72, 78 & 79 are the only ones from that source that can be positively identified.

It would be good to find out more about this subject and create a definitive record of Crown Ducal glazes but I fear much of the information may be lost. Perhaps someone who understands ceramic glazes better than I, and has a collection of Crown Ducal Arcadian glazes can marry up what they see with the glaze list above.

The Bowes Museum - Summer 2018

The Charlotte Rhead: Between Art and Industry display at The Bowes Museum has now been dismantled and the items safely returned home. Sad that it is over, but we have been most fortunate in being able to show off part of our collection to a wider audience especially in such a prestigious location. We say a very big thank you to The Bowes Museum for hosting the display and in particular, Howard Coutts, Keeper of Ceramics, who was instrumental in making it all happen and to Catherine Dickinson and Vincent Shawcross for presenting it so beautifully.

We would also like to thank Howard for encouraging Ian to give a short talk on collecting Charlotte Rhead pottery to the Northern Ceramics Society at their meeting on June 20^th in The Bowes Museum. It did feel like gate crashing a 17^th to 19^th century ceramics party but hope a little 20^th century content provided an interesting distraction.

In addition, it was most enjoyable being able to produce the booklet to accompany the event and that will always be a fine souvenir of the display. Many thanks to the team at Curious12 in Bishop Auckland and we have no hesitation in recommending them to those searching for help with a design and print project. They exceeded our expectations with their imaginative design flair, advice on printing format and amiable patience with all the proof reading niggles.

All that remains is to show some pictures of the display especially for Charlotte Rhead enthusiasts who were unable to visit Barnard Castle this summer.

Ian & Margaret

PS  It is only by chance, but the display cabinet being adjacent to the Jacques Gruber stained glass panel is quite striking. The similarities of line and colour between Charlotte’s pottery and Gruber’s leaded glass of a decade earlier, (c.1925) is quite remarkable.

The Bowes Museum links

http://thebowesmuseum.org.uk/About-Us/News/Detail/ArtMID/3381/ArticleID/4378/Charlotte-Rhead-Between-Art-Industry

https://www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk/Exhibitions/2018/Charlotte-Rhead-Between-Art-Industry

Booklet preview link & Curious 12

http://poshet.net/post/1794288563619926794_3232282531

Tube-lined base markings other than signatures and tube-liner identifiers

Collectors of Charlotte's tube-lined designs from Crown Ducal may have noticed items where the tube-liner has added numbers, letters or marks other than a Rhead signature or tube-liner identifying mark to the base.

These fall into five categories:

• Production instructions - tube-lined .K. and .S. marks (and similar)
• Tube-lined shape numbers
• Tube-lined pattern numbers
• Triangles of 3 tube-lined dots
• And others!

All of these markings must have had a purpose at the time they were applied. Sometimes the purpose is clear such as the pattern number, but it may not be evident why the pattern number was tube-lined on some items and not others. This post is a summary of my thoughts so far on what can be read into these "additional" markings.

The tube-lined .K. mark

Tube-lined .K. mark on a Persino pattern 3052 12" charger

Occasionally you may come across a tube-lined letter K with a dot either side, “.K.” on the base. The mark is obviously applied by the tube-lining artist at the time she signed her Rhead signature. There is evidence that it is a message to the enamellers, gilders and lustrers that the pot need to be decorated in a different way to usual. Bernard Bumpus records the K mark as a possible identifier for a tube-liner, but this would not make sense because it is usually accompanied by a known tube-liners mark and therefore must have another purpose.

The single mention of the “.K.” mark in the Crown Ducal pattern books is under the entry for the Green Chain pattern 4298 where there is a pencil notation, “To be marked .K.” I have recorded 7 examples from the original production run of pattern 4298, (AGR2 backstamp style), that have the “.K.” mark. The only other patterns seen to date with the “.K.” mark are Byzantine 2681, (24 examples) and Persino 3052, (13 examples) which are different colourways of the same design.

The possibility that the mark might be to alert the decorators to apply different colours is reasonable because in 1935 both orange and green versions of the Chain pattern, (4100 and 4298), would have been in production. The tube-lining was exactly the same for the two patterns, so instructions would have to be passed somehow as to what colours should be used to fulfil the required client orders.

Unfortunately the theory breaks down because, of the Byzantine/Persino pairing of “.K.” marked pieces the 25 Byzantine pots are decorated in traditional 2681 colours, not 3052 colours. Therefore if the mark was an instruction to the enamellers then the message was ignored most of the time!

This could be resolved by changing the the meaning of the ".K." mark to - ask the supervisor what colours to decorate the pot with because two versions are in production at present - that might work.

Whatever the precise meaning, the general idea still has merit because further study of the pattern books reveal that two other patterns have instructions that they should be marked in a specified manner. These are 4300 and 4318, which are variations of the Tudor Rose pattern. For pattern 4300, the instruction is “To be marked ".B.”, which makes sense as one of the dominant colours in the design is blue. Similarly for pattern 4318 the instruction is “To be marked .O.”, where the dominant colour is orange. It should be said that at the time of writing no examples of Tudor Rose have been seen with a tubelined “.B.” or “.O.”. Please let me know if you have one.

The tube-lined .S. mark

Tube-lined S mark on a Lotus Leaves pattern 2682 bowl

The “.S.” mark is  more problematic, it can exist with or without the dot marks either side, there is no reference to it in the pattern books and it occurs on a wider range of patterns, sometimes with only a few observations, or a single example. Of the 38 examples seen it is most commonly found on the Lotus Leaves pattern, (2682), Rhodian, (3272) and Trellis, (6016). But also examples are known on patterns 2691, 2801, 3797, 4016, 4040, 5391, 5393, 5802, 5803, 6017 and rare unnumbered trial designs.

Some of these patterns exist in different colourways. For Lotus Leaves most of the ".S." marked items are the rarer green wash variation , (but not exclusively). Several other designs in the list above exist in different colourways, either with the same pattern number or a different one. There is a high proportion of variations to the true designs amongst the ".S." marked items but equally, in many cases it does not appear that the decorators modified the enamelling in any way.

First thoughts are that the ".S." represents an instruction for special colouring since the two colourways of Lotus Leaves are the earliest known colour variation of Charlotte’s Crown Ducal patterns. A single jug in the Turin, (2691) pattern without any enamels has been seen with an S mark.

The next occurrences of S are on Rhodian, (3272), but only one of the five examples has any variation of the design and that is in the green and blue colourway. After that, examples are scarce until the 5391 special blue/mauve mottle glaze pots, (also used for Iris & Floretta patterns). Then two examples on Fruit Border, (5802), only one of which appears different to type with a border motif more akin to Rhodian. There is one example on Palermo, (5803), which is a special variation of the design, (or the original prototype) with two rows of petals, and several on Trellis, (6016), none of which appear to exhibit any variation from type. 

The evidence is not very compelling, the suggestion that these marks were originally devised as codes for alternative colour decoration remains a possibility. Or perhaps the mark meant they were the "Samples" for the Crown Ducal travellers, (sales representatives) to take for showing to clients - but then the range of items seen would seem rather odd with several 2682, 3272 and 6016 but none or very few of the other patterns. It is also worth remembering that "Special" or "Sample" may not relate just to the pattern or a variation in the pattern, but could be about the shape. A handled vase in shape 198 exists in pattern 2801 with an ".S." mark and the AGR2 backstamp. It appears to be the standard Byzantine/Danube design, but this would not have been a new design when it was made. But the shape was new, it only went into production at the beginning of 1935, and so the "Sample" may have been to show off the new shape rather than the pattern itself.

It is probably best just to say it might mean that the pot is destined for a special purpose so that it might be decorated with extra care and be identified, retrieved and set aside at the end of the decorating process for whatever this special purpose might be.

Just to add to all the uncertainty in these matters, one item, (a smokers box in Stitch , 3274) is marked "SS" and a green washed Lotus Leaves jug with green wash is marked "SD". "Special Shape" and "Special Design"  - who knows?

Tube-lined shape numbers

Tube-lined shape number 174 on a  Primula pattern bowl

The shape number of is often tube-lined on the base of vases and some bowls, but this practice appears to have ceased sometime during 1936. It is not uncommon to find the early patterns and examples of Persian Rose, (4040), or Green Chain, (4298), with the feature but much less so on Tudor Rose, (4491) or Manchu, (4511). No design younger than Manchu has been observed with a shape number tube-lined on the base.

The new shapes that were introduced in 1936 like 209, 211, 212, 213 and 214 all had the shape number moulded within a recessed rectangle quite clearly in the base so that the glaze could not obscure the figures as was often the case with the inscribed shape numbers. It was probably at about this time that it was deemed unnecessary to tube-line the number as well.

This is quite a useful date marker but not a very precise one. Although the new shapes with moulded numbers are almost certainly the trigger to stop tube-lining shape numbers, it is impossible to say if the practice stopped because of a change in policy or it gradually ceased because it was becoming a wasted effort. My thoughts lean to the former scenario because I have only seen one pot from those shape numbers, 209-214, with a tube-lined shape number and that is a shape 209 with pattern 2801. A splendid vase produced late in the production period for the Danube pattern and may possibly have been a special order or one of the first trial pieces to show off the the new large vase shape 209.

Tube-lined pattern numbers

Tube-lined pattern number 4953 on a Foxglove 12" charger

If shape numbers stopped being tube-lined in 1936 is is almost the opposite story for pattern numbers. In the early 1930s it appears that only slip decorated patterns had tube-lined pattern numbers. These would be the big salad bowls and platters for the USA market and the Blossom design on snow glaze, pattern 4538. If a pattern number is present on any other design it would have been applied by the enameller or lusterer.

Then sometime, in 1936, it becomes more likely that the pattern number is tube-lined for all designs. Certainly observations show that patterns 4921, 4922, 4924, 4926, 4953 and 4954 have a very high chance of having tube-lined pattern numbers. These would all have been promoted strongly at the British Industries Fair in March 1937 so perhaps it was decided with the great surge in orders that it was more efficient for the tube-liners to number the pots rather than the paintresses.

Triangles of 3 tube-lined dots

Tube-lined 3 dot triangle mark on a Stitch pattern 3274 bowl

These are a fascinating curiosity. I have details of 16 items where there is a small triangle of 3 tube-lined dots on the base, 8 are on Byzantine, 2681, 1 on Lotus Leaves, 2682 and the remaining 7 on Stitch, 3274. The Byzantine and Lotus Leaves pots all have Charlotte's own signature on the base. So can we presume that the triangle of dots mean these pots are the work of Charlotte Rhead, and consequently that Charlotte even mucked in with tube-lining examples of the simple Stitch pattern herself? I believe there has to be a more involved explanation than that otherwise why sign and add the dots as well. 

And Others!

A couple of other marks have been seen. A single example of a tube-lined asterisk and two examples of the the letters ".N.M.". They do not appear to be decorated differently to type so there is not much  point in speculating their meaning.