LIVE24SEVEN // Property & Interiors
A BUY E R S GUIDE - RUS K IN POT T E R Y From West Smethwick to
I was just 17 the first time I ever handled a piece of Ruskin Pottery. Having just passed my driving test, I used to travel down to Birmingham to stay with my best friend and antiques “partner in crime” Sally.
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As a pair of starved and hungry students we would raise some much need spending money by standing at the old Rag Market Antique Fair in the heart of the city. One time while staying over, Sally’s mum, a big fan of the Arts and Crafts period, proudly showed me a rich, red vase purchased from a car boot for just £2.50! Visibly bursting with excitement she could see the baffled look on my face and explained that this was a piece of high-fired Ruskin Pottery, local, Arts and Crafts and worth a lot more than she’d paid for it… not long afterwards she sold it for £800!
Will Farmer is our antiques & collectors expert, he is well known for his resident work on the Antiques Roadshow, he has also written for the popular ‘Miller’s Antique Guide’. Those in the know will have also come across him at ‘Fieldings Auctioneers’. We are delighted that Will writes for Live 24-Seven, he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and expertise.
My interest was piqued and I started looking out for pieces – which I discovered ran the gamut from vases and perfume bottles to bowls and ginger jars, decorated in deep flambé hues, lustrous tints and uniquely patterned finishes – and trying to find out more about them. The more I’ve learnt about this little pottery and the incredible drive and commitment of the men behind it, the more fascinated I’ve become.
The founder, Edward Taylor, a leading figure in the Arts & Crafts movement and head of the Birmingham School of Art, had a lifelong ambition to create a new kind of pottery. Having first built a small kiln in the garden of his Edgbaston home, where he experimented with glaze effects with the help of his son, William Howson Taylor, in December 1898 they opened a small pottery works on Oldbury Road, West Smethwick, where the experimentation continued.
Inspired by Chinese ceramics of the 12th to 19th centuries, they spent many long hours trialling complicated combinations of metallic glazes, temperature, timing, smoke and cooling periods, spending three years and over £10,000 before allowing even one piece out of the pottery.
The pottery’s output can be divided into four main categories: Soufflé, Lustre, Crystalline and high-fired Flambé – my favourite and by far the most sought- after finish. Perhaps owing to the problem of copyists, there was a great degree of secrecy surrounding production of these pieces, with Howson Taylor personally preparing the glazes and only a select few employees allowed to work on the firings at the “red kiln”. The results were worth it. During the early 1900s the Ruskin pottery exhibited internationally to huge acclaim, winning the Grand Prix at the St Louis exhibition in 1904 and soon private buyers and leading institutions the world over were snapping up pieces.
By the 1930s demand was beginning to wane. Troubled by ill health Howson closed the factory in December 1933 and promptly destroyed every shred of research and development he had spent years compiling, determined no-one
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