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Vase
Gellatly, William - Enlarge image
Vase
- Place of origin:
Wrecclesham, England (made)
- Date:
ca. 1901 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Gellatly, William (designer)
A Harris & Sons (manufacturer) - Materials and Techniques:
Earthenware with sgraffiato decoration with the slip in white under a yellow glaze
- Museum number:
1171-1901
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 125g, case 4
Object Type
This vase, in a classic Chinese shape and made in red earthenware, is covered with a yellow glaze. The designer and potter, William Gellatly, has incised patterns from a variety of sources through the glaze. The most obvious of these are Celtic-style knots, which would appeal to collectors in Arts and Crafts circles. Although of a perfectly functional shape, the vase is also decorative enough to stand out in any interior.
People
Around 1880 Absalom Harris, a farmer, was also the proprietor of the Farnham Pottery in Surrey. His pottery accounts record his dealings in potatoes, barley and straw and the dates on which his cows and horse were mated, as well as the production of utilitarian earthenwares. The painter Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899) asked him to copy a French green-glazed garden vase. To Harris's surprise the extra vases, over and above Foster's order, sold well. He then began to make copies of other historic wares. In 1889 W.H. Allen, formerly advisor to the V&A, became master at Farnham School of Art. He suggested that Tudor greenwares from the Museum's collections could be used as sources for the pottery's work. At the same time, Allen's students, like William Gellatly, were able to practise their skills at the pottery using yellow and brown glazes as well as the Tudor green.
Trading
In the 1890s the London retailers Heal's and Liberty's, and the Rural Industries Society, began to stock the new wares made by the Farnham Pottery. The pottery's turnover more than doubled. Extra staff were employed, and a showroom was built at the works. Art wares provided a good alternative source of income at a time when the potter's traditional markets were in decline.
