tile
- Museum number
- 1980,1010.10
- Description
-
Earthenware tile, dust-pressed cream body, hand-painted in blue under glaze with the figure of Proserpine scattering flowers within a roundel. The roundel is set against a floral and foliage grid pattern and the name 'Prosperine' is written in a scroll below. Maker's mark on reverse.
- Production date
-
1868 (manufacture of tile)
-
1871-1875 (decorated)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 29 centimetres
-
Width: 29 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This tile was designed by Sir Edward Poynter for the Grill Room of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The scheme consists of large classically-inspired hand-painted tile panels featuring the seasons and the months of the year. The dado comprises tiles with fruit and flowers, landscapes, and mythological figures, such as the Proserpine tile. All of the dado tiles feature floral backgrounds like that of the Proserpine tile. For illustrations and a detailed description of the entire scheme, executed between 1876 and 1881, see John Physick, 'The Victoria and Albert Museum: The History of Its Building', (Phaidon and Christie's,Oxford, 1982), pp. 136-41.
The tiles were hand-painted to Poynter's designs by artists at Minton's Art Pottery Studio. The Art Pottery Studio only operated from March 1871 to summer 1875, when it was destroyed by fire and left considerable debts. Although not financially successful , the Art Pottery Studio employed several famous artists, including Christopher Dresser, William Wise, Henry Stacy Marks and John Moyr Smith. W. Coleman was the first director in charge of selecting students and skilled workers from the factory at Stoke. The majority of the students who worked at the studio were women.
See Christie's London, 12 September 2002, lot 42, for another tile from the same series also with date mark for 1868 for the manufacture of the tile itself.
For tiles with a similar border, see Stoke 1984, no. 196 and Fired Earth 1991, no. 176. For illustrations of the Grill Room scheme, see Hans van Lemmen 1993, p. 148 and Atterbury and Batkin 1990, p. 195.
Gallery label wrongly reads: 1980,1010.1.
- Location
- On display (G47/dc16)
- Acquisition date
- 1980
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1980,1010.10