Twintone Love

I've just spent a wet weekend smartening up the Twintone Gallery on my website.  

The tea pots and sugar bowl above are in the Streamline shape designed by John Adams in 1935 and later updated by Alfred Read.  They're coloured in Twintone glazes C95, Indian Red and Magnolia, my favourite combination, which was produced between 1955 and 1959.  You may also notice that the pots here have cleverly formed themselves into a heart shape.

Bon Voyage 220/SM

This bowl has had quite an exciting time over the past couple of years. Well, exiting for a little 80 year old pot anyway.  After first appearing on my website in 2009, it soon outgrew my virtual world to make a glossy full colour appearance in the July 2010 edition of Antiques Info magazine, in a feature article on Art Deco British ceramics.  And although lately, it has had a brief idle period (in a box under the spare bed), it's charms have again been spotted and it's leaving me tomorrow, by air, to join a major Poole Pottery collection in Canada.  

Train Spotting Bokhara

Here's another "Contour" range shape jam pot painted in Bokhara colours. This time in OEA pattern painted by Silvia Davis. An OEB pattern version can be seen here.

Chinese Blue Glaze Vase

Here's my latest eBay find. It's a small spill vase shape number 586 covered in a thick chinese blue glaze developed by John Adams and it dates from the mid-1920's.  I've got 3 of these in total now all different shades of blue-green- this one being by far the bluest.

Smoke and Mirrors

Not quite out for a duck

Designed by John Adams and Harry Brown between 1936 and 1939, this duck was produced in 3 sizes and  coloured with the "Picotee" spray-on glazes developed by Lesley Elsden.  Other flying birds were modeled as seagulls and blue birds, though unlike those some of the feathering details on the duck relies more on the application of the glaze, than the molding - surface decoration that is really quite effective.  My duck is the middle sized version, shape number 812/2 and was produced in the early 1950's.

The flying duck is all I came away with from Newark on Friday.  There were a few other nice pots, but nothing else either rare enough or cheep enough, and it may be the best things had already been sold.   Friday is the second day at Newark, with £5 admission as opposed to Thursdays £20 charge, but if I am getting more discerning (picky) in my collecting , maybe I need to be there on the first day in future.

112/QD

I'm off to Newark on Friday, for the first time this year. The last time I was there I came away with a vase in the same pattern as this one that I found on eBay last week.  QD is a really bold confident abstract pattern that doesn't come up that often, so could be a while now before I find another, but I'll keep looking.  This vase is shape number 112, 5 inches tall and was painted by Marjorie Batt in the early 1930's.

Look here for my last Newark Post

Persian Deer

I found this pot before ever starting this blog, but now really is the time to post a photo. It's painted in the Persian Deer pattern, and like the pot below was painted by Ruth Paveley, only a little later in about 1938, though the pattern is older than that. Both patterns are painted on shapes designed by John Adams, and this SK pattern was again designed by Truda Carter.

Art Deco Beastie

Here's the vase I've been saving up for all year - well, since January anyway. It was painted by Ruth Paveley during the early 1930's in the TZ, or Leaping Stag pattern. The pattern itself was designed by Truda Carter, but it has a close similarity to patterns designed by John Adams (Truda Carters first husband), and is very reminiscent in pose to the springbok bookends that John Adams also designed.

Carved Delphis Vase

I found this Delphis vase on eBay quite a while ago now and not sure why its taken so long for me to post a photo.  I guess it looks a bit lost against the black background.  Shape number 83 it's about 6 inches tall, hand thrown and carved and painted by Jean Millership in the mid to late 1960's.