Bowl
Della Robbia Pottery
Category
Ceramics
Date
1896
Materials
Earthenware
Measurements
228 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Birkenhead
Order this imageCollection
Dunham Massey, Cheshire
NT 929467
Summary
Bowl, red earthenware with tin glaze, foot ring, ogee body shape, octagonal form with lobed rim, painted by Liz Wilkins, incised by Harry Pearce, Della Robbia Pottery, Birkenhead, 1896; sgraffito design of a large stylised flower at the centre of the bowl with eight petals, repeating pattern around the rim of triangles with trefoils inside, alternating with circles with a central dot, coloured glazes in turquoise, green, brown and yellow.
Full description
This bowl was incised Harry Pearce and painted by Elizabeth (known as Liz or Lizzie) Wilkins at the Della Robbia Pottery. Liz Wilkins was from Birkenhead, so was local to the pottery Merseyside. She worked primarily as a sgraffito artist, decorating pots with incised decoration, and as a ceramic colourist, painting designs in coloured enamels and glazes. Wilkins was fifteen when she joined the pottery shortly after it opened in 1894 and worked there for ten years. Among her most important work were the panels she painted for a fountain for the Savoy Hotel, which was commissioned from Della Robbia and worked on by a number of its artists. Harry Pearce had a shorter career at the pottery and worked there in its early years. Little is known of him, but he appears to have been born in Devon and moved onto become an apprentice engine-maker, probably at the local shipyard. The Della Robbia Pottery was a short lived operation, in business from 1894 to 1906. It took its name and inspiration from the maiolica (tin-glazed earthenware) masterpieces of Italian Renaissance sculptor Luca della Robbia (c.1400–82) as well as the Pre-Raphaelite art movement in Britain. The studio was established according to Arts and Crafts principles, aspiring to use local labour and materials, and to create works entirely by hand. It employed many women as designers and decorators.
Marks and inscriptions
LW 1896 (marked)
Makers and roles
Della Robbia Pottery , pottery manufacturer Elizabeth 'Liz' Wilkins (b. c.1878), painter
References
Hyland 2013: Peter Hyland, The Della Robbia Pottery, Birkenhead, 1894-1906, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club 2013