Bristol Delftware Star Dish with Sponged Manganese Clouds,
English, Circa 1745

This Bristol delftware shallow dish, made around 1740 to 1750, shows the lively folk-art quality for which English delftware is so admired, a world away from the formal designs of imported porcelain. The center is dominated by a large five-pointed star built from bold freehand strokes of iron-red radiating from a copper-green ring. Within the ring sits a small stylized Chinese fence of latticed panels beneath a row of grass tufts, a much-simplified borrowing from the chinoiserie designs popular at the time.

Around the star, clouds of sponged manganese, fired to a soft purplish brown, drift across the well and continue in a band around the border, where they alternate with fan-shaped sprays in iron-red. Small iron-red crosses and crescent strokes punctuate the well, and a broad green band frames the whole design inside the rim edge. The dabbed, uneven texture of the sponging gives the decoration a sense of movement and depth characteristic of Bristol painting of the period.

A single dish of this size sits well on a plate stand on a shelf, mantel or bookcase, or hung within a wall arrangement of English and Dutch delftware. Its iron-red, green and soft purple palette also pairs comfortably with creamware, pearlware and other early colored earthenware.

Dimensions
Diameter: 8 7/8 inches (22.5 cm)
Depth: 1 1/4 inches (3.2 cm)

Provenance
Private Collection.

Condition
Good antique condition, with typical rim fritting and glaze crazing consistent with 18th-century delftware.

References
F. H. Garner and Michael Archer, English Delftware, revised edition, London: Faber and Faber, 1972.
Louis L. Lipski and Michael Archer, Dated English Delftware: Tin-Glazed Earthenware 1600-1800, London: Sotheby Publications, 1984.
Frank Britton, English Delftware in the Bristol Collection, London: Sotheby Publications, 1982.
Michael Archer, Delftware: The Tin-Glazed Earthenware of the British Isles, A Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1997.

Historical Context
By the 1740s Bristol was, with London and Liverpool, one of the three principal centers of English delftware, its potteries at Temple Back and Redcliff Back supplying tablewares that offered an affordable alternative to Chinese porcelain. The colors were metallic oxides painted directly onto the raw, unfired tin glaze (manganese for purple, iron for red, copper for green), so nothing could be corrected once applied. Sponging, dabbing the glaze with a sponge charged with pigment, was a quick way to build texture and was used at Bristol for the foliage of trees on the so-called farmhouse plates; here it becomes a free, almost abstract pattern of clouds around the star, the kind of spontaneous, unpretentious design that makes English delftware so appealing today.

(Ref: NY8269-krr)


Condition:
Alterations: Original Condition Unaltered
Imperfections: Some Imperfections
Condition Notes: no repaired typical delftware frits

Origin:
United Kingdom

Materials & Techniques:
Earthenware

Details:
What type of item is it? Vintage / Antique / Used
Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Original Condition Unaltered; Some Imperfections; no repaired typical delftware frits