XII

LUSTRE WARE

The old Spanish golden red and canary coloured lustrous dishes with Moorish ornamentation, and the wonderful Italian majolica, with its copper and purple and amber surfaces glowing like beaten metal, are probably the early masters from which our English potters took the idea which they adapted to the decoration of their pottery.

In this chapter we shall treat solely of English lustre ware. It is roughly divided into three classes—copper, silver, and gold.

The copper or brown lustre was made at Brislington, near Bristol, as early as 1770. Compared with the Spanish lustre dishes, it is more rudely ornamented and poor and inartistic in form compared with their Arabic designs. Our English copper lustre, or “gilty” ware, as it is called in some parts of the country and in Ireland, may be sub-divided into two classes. The plain copper lustre, in which the jug, or dish, or teapot is entirely covered with the copper lustre; and secondly, the partially lustrous ware, in which some portions of the pottery are in relief and are coloured with some bright pigments, or left white.

In the group of lustre ware, which we reproduce, with the exception of the centre dish, all the pieces are copper lustre. The three fine jugs are decorated with turquoise blue, as are also the two cream jugs. This blue, though it comes out white in our illustration, is of a deep turquoise. On the top shelf, the jug to the right is decorated with red as well as blue. It will be observed that the spouts of the jugs are in the form of a man’s head with long beard, and the handle is the figure of a man’s body. The scenes depicted on them are typically English in treatment. A castle in background and a shepherd with his flock in foreground. The small lustre cup has simply a rough-surfaced band of white running round it. The whole form a representative group of this class of ware.

The best period in the copper lustre is in the first years of the nineteenth century, before the introduction of colours in conjunction with the coppered surface. It may be observed in passing that the art of producing copper lustre has continued in a spasmodic manner down to the present day, the latter specimens being of a rougher exterior and of a coarser finish.

By the kindness of Mr. W. G. Honey we are enabled to reproduce some fine examples of lustre ware from his collection on view last year at the Cork Exhibition. The copper lustre bust, 15¹/₂ in. high, is a perfect example of lustre ware at its highest level. This specimen has no equal in any of the public collections. Two other illustrations, one of which appears as a headpiece, giving half a dozen forms of copper lustre jugs, are from the same collection. While the copper lustre jug, 8³/₄ in. high, is a beautiful specimen of fine modelling.

With regard to silver and gold lustre, that in all probability became extinct for a little time, but in recent years the great demand for silver lustre has produced a corresponding supply, manufactured abroad for the English collector, but it is very inferior and easily detected from the early examples by its coarse and dull surface and slovenly finish.

The places where lustre ware is known to have been manufactured are at Brislington, by R. Frank, about 1770; at Etruria, by Wedgwood, in 1780; and by Wilson, in Staffordshire, in 1785; also by Moore & Co. and Dixon & Co., at Sunderland, about 1820.

Swansea, at the Dillwyn pottery (of which we spoke in our “Chat” on Swansea), also, about 1800, is known to have produced lustre ware.

Different processes were employed in producing the lustre, but they all consist in reducing the metal from a state of combination, by dissolving it in some chemical, and depositing it in a particularly thin layer on the surface of the pottery, so that it exhibits its characteristic lustre without burnishing. As may readily be supposed, the amount of platinum used for the silver ware, and gold for the purple or gold lustre, is extremely small.

Of the silver or platinum lustre very many fine examples exist, and it is extremely popular owing to its similitude to old English silver or plate. The sugar bowl we reproduce, with beaded pattern and fluted design, is quite in the style of the Sheffield plate of the Georgian period. Of the three silver lustre cream jugs, that in the extreme right is of the same design, while the other two show at a glance the beauty of form that silver lustre in its best period reached.

Other varieties of this silver lustre are quite plain, as in the teapot we reproduce (p. 229), which is an example of a slightly later period. This is a fine specimen of the unornamented variety of silver lustre which is undistinguishable from silver. In fact the highly burnished surface of such a teapot as this cannot be obtained on silver, the lustre is of a richer and deeper quality. Alas! it possesses the dangerous property of dissolving, like a fairy gift, into nothingness. Elfin gold will turn into a circle of whirring, dancing, mocking leaves, and if your wondrous lustre teapot slips to the ground, it lies a heap of brown earthenware fragments.

One word in passing to collectors of this ware. Do not wash your specimens any more than you can help, as warm water has a deleterious effect on the lustre, and tends to make it less brilliant; we recommend our readers to polish their lustre ware with a soft cloth, and we wish them absolute and entire freedom from all mishaps. Treat the ware lovingly and kindly, it will never come again; the potters who made it are dead, the modern imitator is but a poor imitator, fraudulent at heart and feeble in result; if cunning lie in his heart it is not in his finger-tips, for, of a truth, his hand has lost its cunning.

Besides the plain silver lustre, there is a decorated variety which is very handsome, and much sought after. Sometimes the ground is of silver lustre decorated in white, and sometimes the ground is white with an elaborate pattern of foliage, of fruit, or of birds, woven in silver thread. The rarest of this variety is the silver pattern on a canary ground.

The first method, with the design left in white, was produced in handsome and highly artistic styles, and there is a pattern known as the “Resist” pattern which is much sought after.

From Mr. W. G. Honey’s collection we have selected a very good example of this silver lustre with design in white. This is of the “Resist” pattern, its artistic excellence speaks for itself.

With regard to gold or purple lustre, the middle dish in the group in our illustration is gold lustre ware, and is probably of Swansea manufacture. Wedgwood produced a gold lustre of remarkable brilliancy. The dish above alluded to is decorated with stags and staghounds, but in some of the gold undecorated examples, such as Wedgwood’s, covered with a mottled ruby-gold lustre, the effect was due entirely to the shape and to the lustre.

The reason that this variety is called gold or purple lustre is that in the lights it shines like gold, and the rest of the pattern in those pieces decorated with flowers and floral pattern, glows with a rich purple.

This purple lustre shows more signs of the hand of time than any of the other lustres, and it is nearly always found to be partially worn off. We give an interesting example of a jug with gold lustre ground and raised coloured flowers from Mr. W. G. Honey’s collection.

Note.—Lustre ware is more fully treated in a chapter in the companion volume, “Chats on English Earthenware.”