Teapot
Foley Bone China (1898-1940)
Category
Ceramics
Date
1934 - 1936
Materials
Lusterware, Lustreware
Measurements
116 x 230 mm; 134 mm (Dia)
Order this imageCollection
Monk's House, Rodmell, East Sussex
NT 768091
Caption
Vanessa Bell was a key figure in the circle of radical artists and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group. She was a director of the progressive but shortlived Omega Workshops, established by Roger Fry (1886–1934). Aimed at breaking down boundaries between the fine and decorative arts, it opened in 1913 and sold textiles, furniture and household accessories designed and made by Bloomsbury artists. Monk’s House, East Sussex, is home to many of Bell’s varied creations, commissioned or acquired by her sister Virginia Woolf (1882–1941). They include paintings – a striking portrait of Woolf among them – but also patterns for embroidery, textiles, hand-painted fireplace tiles, furniture and other objects. Some of the collections reflect other interiors that Bell created in collaboration with her partner, Duncan Grant (1885–1978), most famously and immersively at their East Sussex farmhouse, Charleston. Bell designed the covers for most of Woolf’s books, published through the Hogarth Press. She also decorated ceramics, painting blanks by Wedgwood and others modelled by Phyllis Keyes (1881–1968), often with the same loose brushwork and bold use of colour that characterise her oil paintings. In 1934 Bell produced two designs for Harrods’ Modern Art for the Table project. This ambitious (although commercially unsuccessful) project brought together contemporary artists with ceramic and glass manufacturers, with the ambition to elevate the quality of industrial design and ‘improve public taste’. Of Bell’s ‘Fitzroy’ pattern, gleaming with purple lustre but rather complex in its design, critic Noel Carrington wrote that ‘the sketchy drawing could be produced by transfer [printing], otherwise it seems less suitable for quantity production’. Another remarkable commission was The Famous Women Service, made by Bell and Grant for the art historian Kenneth Clark (1903–83), now in the collection of the Charleston Trust. The 50 Wedgwood plates are painted with portraits of ‘women in different capacities’, from Elizabeth I to the Queen of Sheba.
Summary
Teapot and cover, bone china, oval form with plain loop handle, the cover with a faceted knop, designed by Vanessa Bell and made by E. Brain & Co (Foley China), , Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent, c. 1934; decorated by hand with the 'Fitzroy' pattern, with purple lustre and yellow, red, blue and grey overglaze enamels, including stylised feathers, flowers and areas of cross-hatching.
Makers and roles
Foley Bone China (1898-1940), manufacturer
References
Conroy, Rachel, Women Artists and Designers at the National Trust, 2025, inside front flap; pp. 200-203