• Style/technique: Stylised floral lustre
• Manufacturer: Maw & Co
• Dimensions: 6" x 6"
• Date: circa 1900

 

A super bright silver lustre tile featuring highly stylised floral decoration, the outline in a brown stain apparently painted through a stencil and hand coloured with silver lustre. A very unique style of design which could be interpreted as art nouveau, aesthetic or arts & crafts movement style, very different from the more conventional interpretations of these styles and especially of arts & crafts movement styles which the form of lustre decorated tiles usually takes.

Most likely dating from around 1898 when aesthetic style progressed in to art nouveau however lustre tiles being rather more artistic in their nature tend to be rather more adventurous in terms of the style expressed and thence more difficult to date from the style. Certainly around 1900 because 'England' is embossed verso and because of the other tiles that were affixed to the same slab.

Maw & Co together with their near neighbours Craven Dunnill and the Welsh company J C Edwards produced the best quality lustre tiles in the more usual copper (red) and silver (gold). The process relying on a reaction between the atmosphere in the kiln and the painted stain results in a brilliant metallic sheen that is literally on the very surface and hence is often subject to marks like scratches and wear, this tile however has a near perfect surface with only very minor marks. The difficulty and unpredictability of the process also means that rather more less than perfect lustre tiles were acceptable. They were vastly more expensive than tiles decorated by other techniques, up to eight times more expensive than other handpainted tiles of the day.

Silver lustre is so-called because the element that makes the colour is silver, the effect however is of gold.

Verso is not named but carries distinctive marks identified as Maws who used dozens of often very different patterns of rails, grids and more.

Condition: Excellent
Price: £240 (approx $475)
Ref: 02288

Two contiguous chips to the left edge done to facilitate the original fixing and thanfully coincident with the middle of the flower where they hide quite well, the surface is near perfect just a few extremely light scratches which don't break through the decoration. An outstandingly clean and bright tile.

The image is full size at 72 dpi (about 430 pixels wide) in maximum quality JPEG format. A larger 120 dpi image also in maximum quality JPEG format can be forwarded by email if required.

The image is a little oversize rather than cropped close to the edges so that the edges can easily be seen and any chips etc can be quickly spotted. Surface marks described are usually not visible at all when the tile is viewed straight as one normally sees it and can only be seen with a critical eye when the tile is tilted to catch imperfections in reflected light. For more details of how we describe marks see Condition.

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