Posts Tagged ‘early meissen figures’

Many major British designers used elements of the Art Deco style in their furniture, while remaining true to their Arts and Crafts roots and making little use of lavish ornament or exotic woods. Art Deco furniture was more typically produced by minor makers, whose work included copies of popular pieces shown at the 1928 Exhibition of Modern Art in Decoration and Furnishing. Held in London, the exhibition introduced decorative, continental Art Deco furniture into Britain. The Modernist influence of the 1930s is seen in the mass-produced furniture by Isokon (1932-9).
TRADITIONALISTS
The designers of the Cotswold School concentrated on the Arts and Crafts tenets of truth to materials, form derived from function, and traditional construction techniques. Native woods such as oak and walnut were favoured, and decoration was minimal. Luxury furniture was made by, among others, Sidney Barnsley (1865-1926), Peter Waals, and Robert Thompson (d.1955), the Houseman”, who used a carved mouse as his signature. Gordon Russell (1892-1980) made the most successful transition to both traditionalist and Modernist styles of Art Deco. While using traditional construction techniques, he incorporated such exotic materials as Macassar ebony and ivory into some pieces, together with Art Deco motifs like sunbursts and chevrons. His belief in the need for good-quality, mass-produced furniture led him to develop a range of furniture that used tubular steel and other synthetic materials, with machine-made parts.
Heal & Son (est. 1800), in London, maintained its role as a major manufacturer and retailer. Oak, especially limed oak, was most commonly used for a range of traditional Arts and Crafts designs with some Art Deco features. Again, decoration was minimal, and although contemporary construction techniques such as screw-fixing were used, pieces were hand-finished.

MODERNISTS
In 1934-5 Finmar Ltd was
set up in Britain to distribute Alvar
Aalto’s moulded plywood furniture. The plain, simple pieces had clean contours, decorated with blocks of colour; solid wood was often combined with laminates. The firm of Isokon (Isometric Unit Construction), founded in London by the architect Jack Pritchard (b.1899), produced a range of simple furniture, generally more adventurous than that distributed by Finmar. Designers associated with the company include Marcel Breuer (1902-81). Typical of the period are its lightweight stacking “cutout” tables and chairs made from a single sheet of cut and moulded plywood.
More exclusive Modernist Art Deco furniture was designed by Betty Joel (1896-1984), who used curving shapes, minimal decoration – wood grain or contrasting veneers – and native woods such as sycamore; from the 1930s she also used chromed steel and plywood laminates. One of the few truly innovative British Art Deco designers was Gerald Summers (1899-1967). In the 1930s he designed side-chairs and open armchairs, cut and shaped with curved backs and seats, in laminated birchwood. The Birmingham firm of PEL (Practical Equipment Ltd, est. 1931) commissioned collectable steel-frame furniture from such designers as Oliver Bernard (1881-1939) and Wells Coates (1895-1958).

•    MATERIALS light woods were popular – sycamore, limed oak, walnut, and burr-walnut
•    CONDITION plywood furniture must be in good condition: check laminated pieces for chips or flaking
•    COLLECTING one-off, commissioned pieces by well-known makers are very expensive; minor furniture is collectable if well designed and in good condition; pieces by members of Cotswold School most desirable; forms associated with Jazz Age most sought after
Marks
Heal & Son: work is stamped with this mark, inset in a circular ivory plaque on the insides of doors or inside drawers

Staffordshire figures
The popularity of porcelain figures in Britain during the 19th century led to a demand for less expensive imitations for the mass market, and the Staffordshire potteries obliged by making exact reproductions of the fine-quality figures made by porcelain factories such as Derby. The rustic charm of Staffordshire figures proved popular at the time, and successive generations have continued to enjoy collecting these generally inexpensive mantelpiece ornaments.
BOCAGE AND SQUARE-BASED FIGURES
The products of John Walton’s factory in Burslem (active 1810-30s) were typical of early 19th-century Staffordshire figures. Copying the tradition set by Chelsea and Derby, the factory included flowering trees, a feature known as “bocage”, behind its figures. Classical deities and allegorical figures (such as the popular set of three female figures representing “Faith”, “Hope”, and “Charity”), aimed at more educated customers, were usually mounted on the same style of square base edged with a brown line. Rustic groups of children playing and shepherdesses were mounted on similar bases or on raised green mounds with streams. Biblical characters proved immensely popular, especially “Elijah and the Widow”. One distinctive type of group, mounted on “table bases” (scroll-footed platforms), is conventionally referred to as being by Obadiah Sherratt (d.1841) after a potter who worked in Burslem from c.1815; however, it is now considered unlikely that Sherratt was responsible for the unmarked table-based models usually ascribed to him.
CHARACTERS AND FAMOUS PEOPLE
Victorian Staffordshire figures were intended to be viewed on a mantelpiece from the front only, and consequently the backs were neither modelled nor painted: hence the name “flatbacks” for such pieces. Many figures were simple but highly decorative images of children or lovers. However, from the 1840s there was a demand for portraits of famous people, whose features were copied from journals or the covers of popular printed music. In an age when the public rarely knew what famous people truly looked like, potters sometimes reused discontinued moulds to represent more topical individuals. Some figures were even wrongly named, such as a portrait of Benjamin Franklin labelled as George Washington.
Some popular figures were produced for many years and often require a close examination to determine whether they are earlier or later examples; this can greatly affect the value. There are many fake Staffordshire figures on the market, and it is important to learn the correct “feel” of genuine pieces, and to buy only from reputable dealers or auctioneers.
A Boy and “zebra”
This “flatback” figure portrays a schoolboy with a horse that has curiously been painted to resemble a zebra. Flatback
figures have little or no modelling on the back, a feature that made them easy to mass-produce. It was assumed that flatback pieces would stand on a mantelpiece above a fireplace, and this piece incorporates a spill vase at the back to hold the rolled-paper spills that were used in the 19th century for lighting the fire.
ORIGINAL AND FAKE STAFFORDSHIRE
• FORMS pairs of animals (very popular from the 1840s), portraits of royalty, politicians, military and naval heroes, sportsmen, theatrical celebrities, religious figures, notorious villains
• CENTRES OF PRODUCTION most figures were made
in the towns centred around Stoke-on-Trent, although a number were made in north-eastern England and Scotland
• COLLECTING a pair of figures will always be worth more than twice the price of a single piece; later examples are less sharply moulded than the originals, with particularly crude painting
• REPRODUCTIONS AND FAKES fake Staffordshire figures
are frequently made of pure white porcelain, stained to look old; “crazing” – a network of tiny cracks or veins in the surface glaze – affects most old figures, and fakers sometimes go to such lengths to reproduce it that they over-emphasize; the resulting effect is too regular and pronounced
Marks
Only a few Victorian Staffordshire figures are marked in any way, but research can identify some factories; earlier figures by John Walton and Ralph Salt (both active early 19th century) have their names impressed into a strap of clay at the back of the base.

In 1880`s st. petersburg reproduction antique russian furniture was very popular in Russia as stafford  pattern had been sold.  Stafford porcelain herbs and spices were removed from auction two years later.
Staffordshire  china  bottom stamp meanings are simple to read and understand together with  staffordshire  pottery flatback figure horse. The famous script “staffordshire  tin glaze” trademark was first introduced in
1828. Its staffordshire antique ornaments stamps have been symbols for many years.
Pair of  of a harvester and companion, the man standing before a flowering tree stump with a scythe over his shoulder, in a pink-lined sea-green coat, his breeches enriched with gold, pink and blue designs, with a
knotted scarf and barrel beside, his companion in pink coat and iron-red bodice, her dress with blue and gold designs, on mound bases encrusted with flowers and moulded with scrolls,  in high, gold anchor marks at back of staffordshire candelabras 18th century salt glaze. Harrison breakfast tea set, painted in colours with two pink lilies and leaves and a small red-flowered plant, with gilt dentil rim, 9 in diameter, gold anchor
markStaffordshire tin glaze by obadiah sherratt were staffordshire figures fake, one with a fox and bird, and the other with a dog goring a fox, before flowering trees, the mounds applied with flowers, on pierced gilt
scroll bases, gold anchor marks. Green ground vase of baluster form from staffordshire england shakespeare collector plates, the elaborate scroll handles enriched with gilding and the neck with pierced arches, the
sides painted in colours with a putto on cloud spray and a flower spray, in gilt scroll cartouches on the green ground.