Vase
Doulton and Co. (Ltd.)
Category
Ceramics
Date
1880
Materials
stoneware with sgraffito and coloured glazes
Measurements
240 mm (H)115 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Lambeth
Order this imageCollection
Standen House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 1213795
Summary
Vase, buff coloured stoneware, spreading foot and narrow stem, gently curved body narrowing at the shoulder, cylindrical neck with flaring rim, Doulton, Lambeth, 1880; designed and decorated by Hannah Barlow, pale slip to body with central sgraffito frieze depicting geese, donkeys and trees, relief moulded leaves to foot, shoulder and neck coloured with blue and brown glazes, bands of applied florets with blue glaze between lines of white beads around the lower body, lower and upper shoulder.
Full description
Hannah Bolton Barlow was one of the most successful and distinctive ceramic artists at Doulton & Co’s Lambeth Art Studio in London. She trained at the Lambeth School of Art & Design and briefly worked at Minton’s art pottery in Kensington, before joining Doulton in 1871. Her vision, talent and tenacity played a major part in Doulton’s success. Barlow specialised in sgraffito, in which a design is incised directly onto the clay surface, often through a light-coloured slip. Her mastery of this challenging technique was described by the writer C. Lewis Hind as ‘demanding a precision of touch rare, even among artists of distinction.’ This is remarkable considering that in 1876 Barlow had lost the use of her right, dominant hand. She wore hand splints for a few months and taught herself to use her left hand to execute her meticulous decoration. Her right hand remained partly paralysed and she continued in a long, successful career with the pottery. By the time she retired in 1913, she was head of the studio. A large number of women worked at Doulton, principally decorating pieces designed by the studio artists. Hannah taught herself to throw vessels on a potter’s wheel, so was a fully-fledged ceramic artist designing shapes as well as decoration. She is renowned for her spirited, economic depictions of animals and kept a large menagerie of pets at home from which she took inspiration, including a tame fox and a Black Mountain sheep. A true collaboration, this vase was designed by Barlow, who created the sgraffito panel, with the additional decoration undertaken by Louisa Wakely and Alice Ritchin. Each can be identified through the presence of their monogram, marked on the underside of the base.
Marks and inscriptions
Underside of base: DOULTON LAMBETH / 1880 (impressed) Underside of base: BHB (incised, for Hannah Bolton Barlow) AR (incised, for Alice M. Ritchin) RO (incised, unidentified) LW (incised, for Louisa Wakely)
Makers and roles
Doulton and Co. (Ltd.) , ceramic manufacturer Hannah Barlow (1851 - 1916), designer Alice M. Ritchin (fl.1881 - 1911), decorator Louisa Wakely , decorator
References
Eyles and Irvine 2002: Desmond Eyles and Louise Irvine, The Doulton Lambeth Wares, Shepton Beauchamp: Richard Dennis 2002 Rose 1985: Peter Rose, Hannah Barlow: A Doulton Artist, 1985