Clash of Pots

My blogging has slowed a bit over the last week or so.  I like to think that might give the impression of me having got a life.  But if truth be told, it's because I've finally succumbed to downloading Clash of Clans on my iPad.
It wont last, so here's a vase I won ( a couple of weeks ago) when I still had time for eBay.  It's just 5 inches tall WK (oak-leaf) pattern, painted by Eileen Prangnell (at a guess) in the mid 1920's.  I like the simplicity of this oak-leaf pattern. It's really quite dynamic, painted as it is in a series of single brush strokes.  Similar to, but much nicer than, the traditional patterns produced in the 1960's and '70's.

All Creatures Great and Small

I visited the antiques fair at Doncaster racecourse this morning looking for Poole Pottery, but came away with this stuffed jay instead.  I'm not too sure why.
Taxidermy does seem like a macabre way to pursue a love of nature.  But this bird is as beautiful as it is unsettling.  The blue feathers have a checkerboard pattern similar to a snakeshead fritillary, the glass eye is the same forget-me-not colour blue.
The very faded label on the back of the box reads, "H. H. Kew, Hairdresser, Bird and Animal Stuffer, 5 Eastgate (near the parish church), Louth.  Every description of English and foreign, birds, fishes, and animals carefully mounted."
Google comes up with a few different H. H. Kew birds, fishes and animals, including a pair of fox heads with the date 1932.

Any Excuse

I spotted this vase advertised online for sale at an antiques center in West Yorkshire, so it gave me a great excuse last weekend to visit a friend, who happens to live in that part of the world, for lunch and some shopping!  Made by Carter & Co this early tin-glazed, stoneware, Poole Pottery vase was made between 1918 and 1921.  It's signed by the decorator MC and painted in an unnamed pattern designed by James Radley Young.

X marks the spot

X is the pattern code for this Portuguese Striped treasure, painted by  Gertie Warren in the mid 1920's and sold to me by a fellow collector earlier this year.  Shape number is 353.

Christine Tate

I found this 10 inch shape number 4 Delphis plate on eBay a couple of months ago.  It was painted by Christine Tate in the late 1960's.

Sweet and Sexy

I found this Grey Pebble pattern Streamline coffee set (minus 2 cups and a sugar bowl) at the Sheffield Antiques Emporium last week.  My friend Sheila wasn't working there on the day I called in, but the lady who wrapped the pots for me described the set as sweet, which I think it is, with it's semi useless demitasse coffee cups.   Quite unlike it's seriously sexy counterpart Black Pebble with it sleek Black Panther glaze. Both patterns were designed by Robert Jefferson in 1959 and the Streamline shape by John Aams in 1935.