As a reaction to mass production, 'art pottery' enjoyed wide
popularity at the end of the 19th century. Names like Carter
(Poole), Pilkingtons (Salford), Linthorpe (Middlesborough), William
De Morgan (London) and Ruskin (Smethwick) all emerged in this
period. Among the most successful and enduring was the Moorcroft
pottery in Cobridge, Staffordshire.
William Moorcroft (1872-1945), an art school graduate and the
son of a Burslem china painter and designer, was first employed in
1897 as a 24-year-old designer for the commercial pottery and
porcelain firm of James Macintyre & Co.
Within a year he was in charge of the company's ornamental ware
department and, by 1904, the Art Nouveau-influenced Florian Ware
that perfected the technique of trailing slip known as tube-lining
had won him a gold medal at the St Louis International Exhibition.
It was this level of success, and Moorcroft's desire to personally
oversee production, which ultimately saw him open a pottery of his
own in 1912 on Sandbach Road, Cobridge backed by the famous London
store Liberty & Co.
Above: the highlight of the Richard Wright collection of
Moorcroft sold by Bonhams in September 2010 was this rare
advertising plaque in the well-known Pomegranate design c.1913
which made £16,000.
Since 1962, when the Moorcroft family bought out Liberty, the
pottery has had a chequered ownership history but has continued to
produce wares in the distinctive tube-lined style. Sally Tuffin
(now of Dennis Chinaworks) produced designs for Moorcroft between
1986 and 1992 while in 1993, 24-year-old Rachel Bishop joined
Moorcroft as only its fourth designer in almost a century.
In 1998 a new Moorcroft Design Studio was established and
employed several designers to extend the range of products.
Early in his employment at Macintyre's, William Moorcroft
created designs for the company's Aurelian Ware (transfer-printed
wares enamelled in red, blue and gold) followed soon afterwards by
Florian Ware that combined Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts forms
and natural motifs with the technique known as tube-lining that has
been used in almost all of Moorcroft's art pottery ever since.
Among the Macintyre ranges were Poppy (1898), the Hazeldene
landscapes with trees (1902), Claremont with its toadstool motif
(1903), Tudor Rose (1904) and the largely monochromatic Flamminian
Ware showing Moorcroft's growing interest in the use of lustre
glazes.
Much of the output was sold through Liberty & Co. in London
and Tiffany in New York.
Pomegranate (1910), Spanish of the same year and Pansy (1911),
along with Wisteria (1910), all showed a subtle change of
direction, while landscapes like Moonlight Blue (1922), Eventide
(1923) and Dawn (1926) won acclaim at the Paris Exhibition of 1925
for wares reflecting the style of the Art Deco period.
Alongside these, the factory also produced an extensive array of
moderately-priced blue-glazed domestic tableware. The Powder Blue
range, made in largely traditional shapes from 1913 until 1963, was
used in Liberty's subterranean cafe.
As some patterns enjoyed long cross-period production runs,
dating Moorcroft can be difficult. The seasoned eye can date a
piece by design, glaze and technique of manufacture but the wide
variety of impressed and printed marks and (if they survive)
factory paper labels, used across more than a century of production
do make the task much easier. The literature is particularly good
on these but the best pieces are signed. With the advent of the
Florian range in 1903, William Moorcroft took responsibility for
all aspects of production and firing and almost every piece carried
his hand-painted signature.
In 1935 William Moorcroft's son, Walter Moorcroft (1917-2002)
joined the firm and introduced many of his own styles and designs
into the catalogue after he took the reins of the company in 1945.
Most of the big flower patterns such as Hibiscus, Anemone,
Magnolia, Lilies and Columbine are from the Walter Moorcroft period
of vivid floral designs. But slowly the market diminished and
although Walter Moorcroft continued to design into the 1990s (his
last, Rock of Ages, was launched in 1999), the Moorcroft family
sold most of their shares in 1984.
The new impetus provided by dealer/author Richard Dennis and
Sally Tuffin in the 1980s, when inventive designs influenced by
wares from the founding days of William Moorcroft were coupled with
the advances in colouring techniques, has continued into the
current era. Today the company boasts that Moorcroft is selling
more of its wares than it did in its heyday of the mid-1920s.
While auction prices fluctuate, Moorcroft remains enormously
popular with a broad range of buyers from the English-speaking
nations and beyond.
Prices for Moorcroft begin at £20 for a piece of Powder Blue or
a post-War pin tray and climb to the five-figure sums paid at
auction for the largest pieces from the Florian range.
Generally, while recently-made pieces are widely collected, and
some of the modern limited edition pieces or those from the Sally
Tuffin era can bring substantial sums, it is the Walter and
particularly the William Moorcroft signed and designed pieces which
are most sought after.
These are distinguished by date, pattern, shape, size, ground
colours and by glaze type. Pieces with condition issues will also
meet a more measured response.
Early patterns in the Art Nouveau/Arts and Crafts taste are
typically the most highly regarded, the later Walter Moorcroft
designs generally less so. At the top of the pile are rarities such
as the Yacht vase sold by Bonhams in 2010 as part of the Wright
collection for £10,000, a lustre Carp vase sold for £16,000 at
Bonhams in 2009, or the Bamboo and Orchids vase sold for £10,000 at
Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury in November 2011.
Both father and son also experimented with high-temperature
flambé glazes for which a special kiln was built in 1921 and these
lustrous wares are currently hugely popular, while advertising
wares or patterns made exclusively for export - such as Waratah
decorated with the state flower of New South Wales - are desirable
rarities.
The ranges applied with period metalware, such as those with
silver or pewter mounts by Liberty & Co. of London, or the
all-over silver decoration applied in America for sale in stores
such as Tiffany in New York, also command a premium. Miniatures,
produced in most patterns, are a collecting field of their own:
some tiny rarities from the Macintyre era can command sums similar
to those for full-size versions.
Moorcroft: A Guide to Moorcroft Pottery 1897-1993 by P.
Atterbury (1993), published by Richard Dennis. ISBN-13:
978-0955374104
Moorcroft: A New Dawnby Fraser Street (2006), WM
Publications. ISBN 0-9528913-3-6
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