- Style/technique: Portrait handmade majolica
- Manufacturer: Price, Bristol
- Dimensions: 7" x 7"
- Date: circa 1890 - 1920
A rare stoneware tile by Price of Bristol, a
substantial tile at 5/8 inch thickness and a little under
7" square. A low relief carving in clay of the face of a
young child, entirely hand made tile. Glazed with the
treacle like glaze used on stoneware bottles and
jars.
Price were major makers of stoneware bottles and jars
in the nineteenth century and are not known for making
tiles. This is made from plastic (wet) clay rather than
the dust pressed clay used for most 19thC tiles, modelled
by hand rather than taken from a mould, a superb example
of low relief sculpting.
This portrait also appears on a dust pressed Carter
& Co of Poole tile apparently from the early 1900s.
Quite why the two companies produced the same portrait is
a mystery, child portraits are most likely to be of a
family member of the modeller or perhaps of the tile
manufacturer. One possible explanation is that this tile
is a little later and Price were considering diversifying
with the downturn in their core business as glass bottles
and jars increasingly took over the market so it may well
have been an experimental trial piece and they simply
copied an appealing design that was to hand,
