The Burslem Art Deptartment

A view of Royal Doulton’s Nile Street preimises Buslem, England

Charles Noke continued to experiment with glazes long after the departure of Cuthbert Bailey with whom he had perfected the Flambé glaze in the early 1900’s. And so in 1920 Sung was introduced, whereby painted decoration, colour and gilt are fused with the a flambé glaze. I am sure you will agree that from this publicity photograph the pieces are magnificent. However, it is in the flesh that these pieces must be enjoyed to full effect as in this slide. Vases, large and small were decorated with exotic birds, pixies in woodlands, fish in seascapes along with many other subjects. These pieces were painted principally by Harry Nixon, Arthur Eaton and Fred Moore. Sung glazes can be found on Buddhas, as seen here in this advert from the 1920’s, a handful of suitable early figures from the HN range such as A Spook, as well as animals, in particular elephants, a favourite of Charles Noke.

Orignial Sung advert ca. 1920

Another magnificent addition to the Burslem range in 1920 was the Chinese Jade glaze, imitating the ancient Chinese glazes of centuries before, by using a thick white glaze streaked with green. Pieces of Chinese Jade are exceptionally rare, due to the costliness of production, together with the high proportion of rejects due to the inherent difficulties in achieving this technique.

Chinese Jade lidded bowl with ‘Despair’ HN596 as the finial (the name of this figure is only a name given when the original figure book was published in 1978 as there is no record of its actual name).

A variation of this ware exists whereby the green streaks are replaced by blue ones, and this extraordinarily rare glaze is aptly named Lapisware.

A very rare Lapisware lamp base

A final glaze worthy of inclusion here is perhaps the most magnificent of all. Chang ware was introduced in 1925 and involved a thick body upon which multi-coloured thick glazes were allowed to run and crackle – contrary to all usual pottery rules.

Original Chang catalogue cover

The results you can see from this slide are breathtaking. Nothing like this glaze had been sen before even in ancient times, and it was greeted by worldwide acclaim. Chang pieces are usually found with the monogram for Harry Nixon on their bases together with Noke, for either Charles or Jack Noke, who succeeded his father as art director in the late 1930’s. The addition of Noke’s name signified the quality such work achieved.

Chang ginger jar and cover

I have already mentioned Doulton Seriesware briefly, with Dickensware as it is now known, and whilst the majority of patterns pre-date the 1920’s new patterns which reflected current tastes and interests were all the while being introduced.

Sample of Dickensware

However older designs such as Dickensware pictured above continued to be big sellers around the world. Here below, we can see examples of the Gnomes series introduced in 1920’s.

Gnomes catalogue page ca. 1924

This is often labelled as Doulton’s version of Wedgewood’s famous fairyland lustre ware by Daisy Makeig Jones. A number of further patters, and one which I feel is much more reflective of the mood of the 1920’s, is this pattern ‘Surfing’ introduced in 1926.

Surfing catalogue page ca. 1924

Once again we can see the popular image of bathers which we have already met when discussing figures, and again in particular women in bathing costume, perfectly illustrates to us today the popularity of the Lido or outside pool and also the beginnings of world-travel beyond the very wealthy. Other patterns introduced during the 1920’s reflect the continued interest in sports such as hunting, seen here with ‘The Quorn Hunt’, which today claims to be one of the world’s oldest hunting packs and in the UK to be our most famous hunt, although fox hunting is now illegal.

The Quorn Hunt catalogue page ca. 1924

Also from the 1920’s we have ‘Kensington Gardens’, which feature silhouettes in this most famous of London’s parks.

Kensington Gardens catalogue page ca. 1924

One final seriesware pattern I would like to mention is Aldin’s Dogs, of course taken from illustrations and drawings by the popular British artist Cecil Aldin. Aldin was not just famous for his animal pictures but also his works of rural life and sport. Doulton were to introduce in the following decade a series of so-called Dogs of Character based on Aldin’s work. However, here you can see from this catalogue page how his work was effectively used as a seriesware pattern, and to explain the popularity of this pattern today, remember we British are reputedly more keen on our dogs than our countrymen!

Aldin’s Dogs catalogue page ca. 1924

There we finish with the Burslem Art Department of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Yet, as you have seen many of what we term our most prized possessions today hail from this period.

Next we will look at the introduction of Character Jugs in the 1930’s!