- Style: Pastoral
- Technique: Hand Painted
- Manufacturer: The Decorative Art Tile
Co
- Dimensions: 6" x 12" each tile
- Date: circa 1895
An excellent pair of hand painted pictures,
landscapes representing the seasons spring and
summer each with a swan upon a meandering river.
Usually seen titled and in colour but these
untitled in pleasing sepia tones.
These are genuinely handpainted tiles showing
the skill of the artist, painted without the use
of an outline there would have been drawings in
the pattern book for the guidance of the artist
rather than a pounced or traced outline to
follow. It is little known that most of the hand
painted tiles were in fact rather more painting
by numbers than hand painting even William de
Morgan traced and painted on to transfer paper
which was then applied to tile. We see a pair of
these every few years, I have probably seen half
a dozen or so pairs, for sure three different
artists painted them, likely more, each is an
individual and unique work of art with
differences such as the positions of the swans
and the line of the river and of course in the
grass and foliage.
Such 6" x 12" tiles were most often used as
the centrepieces of fireplace panels both
slabbed and in cast iron but they are also found
framed as pictures. They were expensive each
tile costing roughly the same as a pair of
tinted print five-tile panels or a dozen tinted
print 6" x 6", a pair cost about a week and a
half's wages of a typical pottery worker. These
apparently were framed as new, versos are very
clean and have script in pencil apparently from
the original retailer or framer indicating
customer name and address and size and style of
frame to be made.
Versos unmarked generic grid possibly
Woolliscroft, also seen on other tiles by the
company.
Condition: Excellent
Price: £380 (approx $612)
Ref: 04993/4
