Fig. 47. ‘New Vase’, shape no. 59 in the 1896 Catalogue. Incised mark ‘HP’ for Harry Pearce, painted monogram ‘HJ’ for Hannah Jones; c. 1898. 21.5cm. Private collection.
necessary, but it was also the result of Harold Rathbone’s approach which was that of an art tutor, not that of a potter. A tutor must always encourage, and a Pottery artist who had showed a spark of true artistic flair in incised decoration would have his piece fired and coloured. Only ‘slipshod’ work was rejected (although the dividing line is not always clear). This artistic tolerance caused many pieces to be put on the market which other potteries would have smashed, and is a cause of the disdain with which Della Robbia wares have sometimes been treated. Most Della Robbia enthusiasts have at least one rather rough-looking piece in their collection, but have learnt to love it because of the honest effort it represents. Harold Rathbone knew all this. In his article for The Sphinx in 1895 he wrote: ‘Local talent alone being employed, these early efforts were naturally somewhat crude. But in that the material was also a local product, the true spirit of life and growth (which has since so remarkably developed) was in them.’ vi.Technical influences Harold Rathbone must have known about contemporary potting trends, the lustre-glazed wares of William de Morgan for example, and the technical advances and glaze experiments being carried out at the Linthorpe Pottery in Middlesborough with the active encouragement of Dr Christopher Dresser. Nearer home, the Salopian Pottery at Benthall, founded in the early 1880s, was decorating wares with coloured slips and high-temperature colours under the glaze, and there is some evidence of a link between this pottery and the Della Robbia Pottery (see p. XXX), but unlike Salopian and Linthorpe, the Birkenhead factory never really experimented once a decorating and firing routine had been established at the beginning. After being forced at the outset to compromise to some extent and betray the principles of William Morris by using moulds and a turning lathe, Harold Rathbone then drew a line and would go no further. No other mechanical aids were allowed. His kiln was built to fire red earthenware clay at a low temperature (1100–1150º) and that was sufficient for him. He was not interested in potting technology, and he imported skills from Staffordshire only to the extent needed to obtain minimum standards of quality.Above all, he detested ‘slickness’.20
20. Ibid. 21. The Magazine of Art, 1897, p. 7.
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Due to this basic and unvaried house technique, the Birkenhead pots do have a unique and consistent appearance and can be distinguished at a distance from the wares of other art potteries.The colour palette used in decoration is certainly a recognisable feature, in particular the predominance of the ‘Della Robbia turquoise’. The glaze, too, is unmistakeable – it looks glossy, as if still wet. The high-flux colours which were used have blended with the viscous glaze, and the pieces gleam – this was deliberate, as Harold Rathbone had a clear idea of how he wanted the pots to look. The inspiration owed much to the bright colours of Deruta, Gubbio and other sixteenthcentury Italian manufacturers and in particular the later Cantagalli revivals of those early styles. Della Robbia pots were intended for the dark corners of Victorian houses, where oil lamp-light would pick out their Mediterranean liveliness and, as the Magazine of Art put it, ‘the ordinary meal would have the comparative air of a banquet’.21 vii.Tube-lining and slip trailing There was, however, one development in decorative technique late on in the Pottery’s existence. The artist Charles Collis spent two years at the Doulton factory at Burslem, during which time he learnt the technique of slip trailing, a process in which a coloured clay slip is dropped or trailed onto the surface of the pot to form part of the pattern outline, and also tube-lining, a similar process in which a thin even line of clay is ‘piped’ onto the surface, often to form the edge of a design feature. On his return to Della Robbia in 1902 he introduced these techniques there, having brought the necessary equipment with him from Staffordshire. In his memoirs Collis makes it clear that Harold Rathbone disapproved of this, as he did any technical innovation: ‘I introduced slip work, that is raised like the old English tygs, and coloured slips – no one else [at Della Robbia] did this type of work. After working in the Potteries, I was able to introduce new ideas. Mr Rathbone was very conservative and reluctant to accept anything that was mechanical.’ Gertrude Russell recalled that she did once try out a piped decoration on a pot but was stopped by Harold Rathbone. She was told that designs had to be sgraffito, and not put on ‘as one would ice a cake’.