moon-flask
- Museum number
- 1993,1011.2
- Description
-
Flask; Parian porcelain; glazed dark brown; on one side pâte-sur-pâte decoration in while of head in profile in classical style on a terracotta pink background, the head is within an elaborate cartouche. The head is of the young Augustus within a hunting trophy with dogs chasing a stag. The neck of the flask is glazed deep blue and decorated with gilded palmette ornament in the classical style, the handles are gilded all over, with black outlines decoratio; feet glazed blue with gilded decoration. Marked.
- Production date
- 1879
- Dimensions
-
Height: 260 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Text from J. Rudoe, 'Decorative Arts 1850-1950', revised ed. 1994, no. 402:
These flasks are illustrated in B. Bumpus, 'Pate-sur-pate. The Art of Ceramic Relief Decoration 1849-1992', London 1992, 121. Bernard Bumpus has kindly supplied the following information from the Minton archive: the flasks are entered in the Minton pâte-sur-pâte estimate book on 20 May 1879. The shape (known as 'bottle, pilgrim') was number 1348, medium size. Mellor was given as the artist and the description, which incorporates elements from both flasks, gives full details of the colours and gilding, including the 'Dark choc ground'. The cost of production was £4.11.10, including Mellor's pâte-sur-pâte painting, which was assessed at £2.28.6. The selling price appears to have been 8 guineas.
The heads are copied from celebrated engraved gems in the British Museum, both in the Strozzi collection in the eighteenth century, both acquired with the Blacas collection in 1867 and regarded then as masterpieces of classical gem-engraving but now thought to be post-classical in date. The pâte-sur-pâte Medusa head is after the "Strozzi Medusa", a chalcedony intaglio found in Rome at the beginning of the eighteenth century, see H.B.Walters, 'Catalogue of Engraved Gems....in the British Museum', 1926, no.1829. The Augustus head is after a sardonyx cameo (Walters 3578). Both gems have been considerably modified in the Minton versions and it may be that Mellor was working from illustrations, or from casts, or from one of the many neo-classical copies of these gems, for example, Gere et.al, 'The Art of the Jeweller: A Catalogue of the Hull Grundy Gift to the British Museum', 2 vols. London 1984, no.898, (by Pistrucci and very close to the Minton Augustus).
Mellor was one of Marc Louis Solon's (see 'Decorative Arts 1850-1950', Rudoe 1991, Cat.273) most highly accomplished assistants and these flasks are among his best work. Mellor worked at Minton's from c.1869 to 1881, initially as a china painter and from 1874 as a surface modeller. He left Minton in 1881 for Wedgwood. The Chinese-style moon flask shape was a popular Minton's shape and was often decorated with subjects that were not Chinese in inspiration.
Pair with 1993,10-11.1
- Location
- On display (G47/dc10)
- Condition
- good- gilding worn on foot
- Acquisition date
- 1993
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1993,1011.2
