Mintons
Industry | , "Secessionist" ware |
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Mintons was a major company in
The family continued to control the business until the mid-20th century. Mintons had the usual Staffordshire variety of company and trading names over the years, and the products of all periods are generally referred to as either "Minton", as in "Minton china", or "Mintons", the mark used on many. Mintons Ltd was the company name from 1879 onwards.[3]
History
1793 to 1850
The firm began in 1793 when Thomas Minton (1765–1836) founded his pottery factory in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England as "Thomas Minton and Sons", producing earthenware. He formed a partnership, Minton & Poulson, c.1796, with Joseph Poulson who made bone china from c.1798 in his new near-by china pottery. When Poulson died in 1808, Minton carried on alone, using Poulson's pottery for china until 1816. He built a new china pottery in 1824. No very early earthenware is marked, and perhaps a good deal of it was made for other potters. On the other hand, some very early factory records survive in the Minton Archive, which is much more complete than those of most Staffordshire firms, and the early porcelain is marked with pattern numbers, which can be tied to the surviving pattern-books.[4]
Early Mintons products were mostly standard domestic tableware in blue
Minton was a prime mover, and the main shareholder in the Hendra Company, formed in 1800 to exploit
Early Mintons porcelain was "decorated in the restrained Regency style",[6] much of it just with edging patterns rather than fully painted scenes, thus keeping prices within the reach of a relatively large section of the middle class.
- Early porcelain
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Creamer, fluted Old Oval shape, c. 1797-1799
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Creamer, Old Oval shape, c. 1800-1815
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Teapot and stand, New Oval shape, c. 1800-1805
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Teapot and stand, London shape, c. 1813-1816
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Slop bowl, c. 1812-1815
Minton's two sons, Thomas and Herbert, were taken into partnership in 1817, but Thomas went in to the church and was ordained in 1825. Herbert had been working in the business since 1808, when he was 16, initially as a travelling salesman. On his death in 1836, Minton was succeeded by his son Herbert Minton (1793–1858), who took John Boyle as a partner to help him the same year, given the size of the business; by 1842 they had parted company.[7] Herbert developed new production techniques and took the business into new fields, notably including decorative encaustic tile making, through his association with leading architects and designers including Augustus Pugin and, it is said, Prince Albert.
Minton entered into partnership with Michael Hollins in 1845 and formed the tile making firm of Minton, Hollins & Company, which was at the forefront of a large newly developing market as suppliers of durable decorative finishes for walls and floors in churches, public buildings, grand palaces and simple domestic houses. The firm exhibited widely at trade exhibitions throughout the world and examples of its exhibition displays are held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. where the company gained many prestigious contracts including tiled flooring for the United States Capitol. The "encaustic" technique allowed clays of different colours to be used in the same tile, allowing far greater decorative possibilities. Great numbers of new churches and public buildings were given floors in the tiles, and despite the protests of William Morris, many medieval church floors were "updated" with them.
Hard white unglazed "statuary porcelain", later called Parian ware due to its resemblance to Parian marble, was first introduced by Spode in the 1840s. It was further developed by Minton who employed John Bell, Hiram Powers and other famous sculptors to produce figures for reproduction. Mintons had already been making some figures in the more demanding medium of biscuit porcelain, and reused some of these moulds in Parian.[8]
In the year ended 1842, the sales of the main company Minton & Co totalled (all round £'000s) £45K, divided as follows:[9]
- Porcelain: gilt £13K and ungilt £8K
- Earthenware: enamelled £6K, printed £10K, "cream-colour" £4K, coloured bodies £2K
- Ironstone: 2K
Much of the transfer printing was done by outside specialists, and "engraving done off the Works" cost £641, while "engraving done on the Works" cost £183.[10]
- 1820 to 1850
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"Cheater" dish with peas, c. 1820
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Biscuit porcelain figure of Hannah More, 1830s
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Jug with Silenus, glazed stoneware, 1840
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Paper knife, Parian ware and gilt metal, c. 1847
Mid-Victorian period
In 1849 Minton engaged a young French ceramicist Léon Arnoux as art director who remained with the Minton Company until 1892. This and other enterprising appointments enabled the company greatly to widen its product ranges. It was Arnoux who formulated[11] the tin-glaze used for Minton’s rare tin-glazed Majolica together with the in-glaze metallic oxide enamels with which it was painted. He also developed the colored lead glazes and kiln technology for Minton’s highly successful lead-glazed Palissy[12] ware, later also called ‘majolica’. This product transformed Minton’s profitability for the next thirty years. Minton tin-glazed Majolica imitated the process and style of Italian Renaissance tin-glazed maiolica resulting in fine in-glaze brush-painted decoration on an opaque whitish ground. Minton coloured glaze decorated Palissy ware/ majolica employed an existing process much improved and with an extended range of coloured lead glazes applied to the biscuit body and fired. Both products were launched at
Mintons made special pieces for the major exhibitions that were a feature of the period, beginning with
- Lead-glazed "majolica", and grand Victorian showpieces
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c. 1855
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Jug with dancing medieval figures, 1868
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Platter with Juno, Neptune, Mercury, Selene, c. 1875. Unlike much "Palissy Ware", this is close to actual Renaissance pieces.
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Planter, c. 1880
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Banana leaf garden seat
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Pie-dish with heads of hares and ducks
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Centrepiece with cream jugs, 1851; part of the dessert service Queen Victoria gave to EmperorFranz Joseph of Austria
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The "Prometheus Vase", 1867, in various techniques
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Pair of pâte-sur-pâte vases by Marc-Louis Solon, 1870
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Grand incense-burner in various techiques
The next twenty-five years saw Mintons develop several new specialities in design and technique, while production of established styles continued unabated. As at Sèvres itself, and many other factories, wares evoking Sèvres porcelain of the 18th century had become popular from about the 1830s, and Arnoux perfected Mintons' blue and pink ground colours, essential for the Sèvres style, but much used for other wares. The Sèvres pink was called rose Pompadour, leading Mintons to call theirs rose du Barry after another royal mistress.[14] Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847), artistic director of Sèvres had given Mintons plaster casts of some original moulds, which enabled them to make very close copies.[15] At the end of the century, when the husband of Georgina Ward, Countess of Dudley, sold his original Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship, a famous, spectacular and rare Sèvres shape of the 1760s (now Getty Museum) in the 1880s, Mintons were commissioned to make a copy.[16]
Parian ware, introduced in the 1840s, had become a strong area for Mintons, whose catalogue of 1852 already offered 226 figures in it, priced from an extremely modest two shillings for a dog, to six guineas for a classical figure. In that decade partly-tinted Parian figures were introduced, and part-gilded ones.[17] Copies of contemporary sculptures that had been hits at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition or elsewhere were produced at a much-reduced scale in Parian. The American sculptor Hiram Powers' hit sculpture The Greek Slave was first made in 1843 in Florence, and by the end of the decade some of the five life-size versions he made had toured several countries. Mintons first made a copy in 1848; by the version illustrated here, from 1849, the figure had lost the heavy chains between her hands, which were perhaps too expensive to make for a popular product.
Arnoux had an interest in reviving
At some point before 1867 Mintons began to work with
On his death in 1858 Herbert Minton was succeeded by his equally dynamic nephew Colin Minton Campbell who had joined the partnership in 1849, with a 1/3 share. Herbert had decreased his involvement in day-to-day management in the years before his death.[20] He took the company into a highly successful exploration of Chinese cloisonné enamels, Japanese lacquer and Turkish pottery.
- Eclectic revival styles
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Gothic Revival by Augustus Pugin(not resembling in the slightest any actual medieval pottery); earthenware, 1850.
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Porcelain centrepiece in the style of Renaissance Limoges enamel, 1866
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Porcelain plate in the style of Renaissance Limoges enamel, 1866, by Henry Stacy Marks
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Pair of bottles in "Oriental" style, reminiscent of Chinese cloisonné enamel, 1870s, design attributed to Christopher Dresser.
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Pair of salts in "Henri Deux" or Saint-Porchaire ware style, by Charles Toft, in lead-glazed "majolica"
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Oriental bowl, 1871,Chinese ritual bronzes, in a "cloisonné ware" style.
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"Henri II ware" meets Islamic style in this pot-pourri vase by Charles Toft, 1871. This decoration is painted rather than inlaid.[23]
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 gave Arnoux the opportunity to recruit the modeller Marc-Louis Solon who had developed the technique of pâte-sur-pâte at Sèvres and brought it with him to Minton. In this process the design is built up in relief with layers of liquid slip, with each layer being allowed to dry before the next is applied. There was great demand for Solon's plaques and vases, featuring maidens and cherubs, and Minton assigned him apprentices to help the firm become the unrivaled leader in this field.
Others introduced to Minton by Arnoux included the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and the painter Antoine Boullemier.
In 1870 Mintons opened an art pottery studio in
- Mid-Victorian painting, 1865-1880
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Mermaid tile, 1867, by Henry Holiday (1839-1927)
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Plate, 1869, William Stephen Coleman (1829-1904)
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Platter by William Stephen Coleman, 1871
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Printed Shakespeare tiles, 1872, designed by John Moyr Smith
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Plaque with fairies watching a spider, c. 1880 by Percy Anderson
Late Victorian and 20th century
From the mid-1890s onwards, Mintons made major contributions to
The Secessionist range covered both practical and ornamental wares including cheese dishes, plates, teapots, jugs and comports, vases and large jardinières. The shapes of ornamental vases included inverted trumpets, elongated cylinders and exaggerated bottle forms, although tableware shapes were conventional. Early Secessionist patterns featured realistic renderings of natural motifs—flowers, birds and human figures—but under the combined influence of Solon and Wadsworth, these became increasingly exaggerated and stylised, with the characteristic convoluted plant forms and floral motifs reaching extravagant heights.[26]
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"Bamboo" pattern, by Christopher Dresser, porcelain, 1875
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Porcelain plate influenced by Japonisme, 1881
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U-shaped vase by Christopher Dresser, porcelain, 1886 or 1889
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Secessionist vases
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Secessionist vase
"Secessionist Ware" was arguably the last boldly innovative move made by Mintons in terms of design. After World War I wares became rather more conventional. The Minton factory in the centre of Stoke was rebuilt and modernised after the
Legacy
Minton Archive
The
Buildings
The main factory on London Road, Stoke-on-Trent was demolished in the 1990s, and the other factory, including office accommodation and a Minton Museum, was demolished in 2002 as part of rationalisation within the Royal Doulton group.[29] Royal Doulton was taken over in turn by the Waterford Wedgwood group in January 2005.[30] As a result of these changes, the ceramics collection formerly in the Minton Museum was partly dispersed.[31] On the other hand, the Minton Archive has been kept together with help from the Art Fund, being transferred to the City of Stoke-on-Trent in 2015.[32]
The Victorian building on Shelton Old Road, Stoke, which used to be the Minton Hollins tileworks is on a separate site from the former Minton pottery. It was threatened with demolition in the 1980s but was listed in 1986 and has been preserved.[33][34]
Notes
- ^ Battie, 168
- ^ Battie, 170
- ^ the potteries org, Index "M"
- ^ Godden, 257-258, 267
- ^ Godden, 254-255
- ^ Battie, 168
- ^ Godden, 255-256
- ^ Battie, 169
- ^ Godden, 257 for all these figures
- ^ Godden, 257
- ^ Leon Arnoux, 1867, British Manufacturing Industry - Report on Pottery, p.42 [1]"Majolica [tin-glaze earthenware, opaque white surface brush-painted in enamel colours] was produced for the first time by Messrs. Minton, in 1850, and they have been for many years the only producers of this article. The name of majolica is now applied indiscriminately to all fancy articles of coloured pottery. When, however, it is decorated by means of coloured glazes [applied directly to the 'biscuit'], if these are transparent [translucent], it ought to be called Palissy ware ... Messrs. Wedgwood, George Jones, and a few other makers of less importance, are reproducing it more or less successfully. To Messrs. Minton, however, we owe the revival of the ware [the coloured lead glazes ware that they named 'Palissy ware'], which, in connection with [in addition to] their majolica [the tin-glaze product], created such a sensation in the French International Exhibition of 1855."
- ^ named after the French Renaissance potter Bernard Palissy (c. 1510 – c. 1589)
- ^ Battie, 169
- ^ Battie, 168
- ^ Vase and cover, V&A Museum
- ISBN 0892361735, 9780892361731, google books, though Sotheby's gave a somewhat different history when they sold the Minton Museum's examplein 2005
- ^ Battie, 168
- ^ Digby Wyatt, May 26, 1858, Journal of the Society of Arts, On the influence exercised on ceramic manufacturers by the late Mr. Herbert Minton, p.442 [2]
- ^ Battie, 170; "Dr Christopher Dresser and the Minton Connection", Minton Archive
- ^ Godden, 256
- ^ The Mantegna at Hampton Court Palace
- ^ Metropolitan note
- ^ Metropolitan Museum curator's note
- ^ "The art pottery studio", Mintons Archive
- ^ "The Democratic Dish: Mintons Secessionist Ware", Minton Archive
- ^ "Christopher Proudlove, "Mintons Secessionist Ware is an epitaph to designer Leon Solon" (WriteAntiques.com, 2006)". Writeantiques.com. Retrieved 8 August 2009.; "The Democratic Dish: Mintons Secessionist Ware", Minton Archive
- ^ "Art Fund helps save the Minton Archive for the nation" (PDF). Art Fund. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 June 2015. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
- ^ "Minton Archive saved for the nation" (Press release).
- ^ "Stoke - Stoke-on-Trent Districts". www.thepotteries.org.
- ^ "Waterford Wedgwood: Jobs to go". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
- ^ "Art sales: ceramics sale ruffles feathers". Telegraph. 2002. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
- ^ "Minton Archive: Lifting the lid on centuries of life in pottery factories". The Sentinel. 2016. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
- ^ Historic England. "Former Minton Hollins Tileworks (1221093)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
- ^ "Stoke-on-Trent Museums -Minton Hollins Tile Works, Shelton Old Road, Stoke". Search.exploringthepotteries.org.uk. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
References
- ISBN 1850292515
- Godden, Geoffrey, English China, 1985, Barrie & Jenkins, ISBN 0091583004
- Savage, George, Pottery Through the Ages, Penguin, 1959
Further reading
- Atterbury, Paul, and Batkin, Maureen, Dictionary of Minton, Antique Collectors' Club, 1990.