Glazed earthenware bottle, Bombay School of Art, 19th century

Water-bottle of reddish earthenware, decorated with a design in white slip under a transparent copper green lead-glaze. Compressed globular body with diagonal rows of flowers and leaves.

Purchased from Lady Ilbert, The Speaker's Court, Palace of Westminster

This bottle was part of a collection selected by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1915) for Lady Ilbert, wife of Sir Courtenay Ilbert (1841-1924), who accompanied her husband to India in 1882 when he was appointed legal advisor to the Viceroy, Ist Marquis of Ripon, returning home in 1886. The examples were all of wares either made by Indian craftsmen working in the traditional centres of Delhi, Rampur, Khurja, Halla and Multan, or of items made at the Bombay School of Art, whose ceramic output was heavily influenced by the products of these indigenous potters. The collection was formed to provide a good representation of the shapes, colours and pottery techniques that were employed. Sir Courtenay became Clerk of the House at the Palace of Westminster where he had a residence in Speaker's Court. The collection was displayed by Lady Ilbert on two ebonised brackets, each holding half the collection of some hundred pieces.

Purchased from Lady Ilbert, The Speaker's Court, Palace of Westminster. This acquisition information reflects that found in the Museum records (Asia Department registers and/or Central Inventory) as part of a 2023 provenance research project.

R.P. 1921/958

The Bombay School of Art's ceramic productions were traded under the name of Wonderland Art Pottery under the direction of George Wilkins Terry, who had been appointed as its first drawing master in 1857. The pottery flourished from the mid 1870s until about 1890 when Terry retired, but continued in diminished form into the early years of the 20th century. Early wares were influenced by those manufactured in Sind as Terry set up his workshop with a Sindhi craftsman called Nur Muhammad. Soon, however, much of the decoration came to be influenced by the cave paintings at Ajanta, which had been discovered earlier in the century, and were copied by the School's students over a period lasting from 1872-1885, elements of which were adapted and used to decorate the ceramics in an attempt to encourage traditions of Indian art rather than European ones. Liberty imported some wares to sell in its Regent Street shop in London; see Stronge, Susan,'Wonderland', Ceramics: The International Journal of Ceramics and Glass, London, issue V, August 1987, pp. 48-53.

Bombay School of Art

The bowl was part of a collection selected by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1915) for Lady Ilbert, wife of Sir Courtenay Ilbert (1841-1924), who accompanied her husband to India in 1882 when he was appointed legal advisor to the Viceroy, Ist Marquis of Ripon, returning home in 1886. The examples were all of wares either made by Indian craftsmen working in the traditional centres of Delhi, Rampur, Khurja, Halla and Multan, or of items made athe Bombay School of Art, whose ceramic output was heavily influenced by the products of these indigenous potters. The collection was formed to provide a good representation of the shapes, colours and pottery techniques that were employed.

IM.7-1921