- Style/technique: Pictorial handpainted
- Designer: Lucien Besche
- Dimensions: 6" x 6"
- Date: circa 1890
A group of freehand enamel painted tiles of children's
rural activities of outstanding quality in fineness of
line and brilliance of colour. Excellent subject matter
executed with style and humour and so rare to see such
brightness and brilliance of colour in any medium with
the exception of fine porcelain.
The charming scenes which were designed around 1870 by
Lucien Besche when working at Mintons China Works are
full of detail and interest.
- Children paddling boats on a flooded springtime
mill pond with blossoming tree and daffodils emerging
from the water.
- Twin girls with parasols strolling above the
shoreline with a coastal village village below and
fruit tree behind and sailing boats on the sea.
- A boy and girl fishing from the bridge at the
mill.
- Mother hands a flower to a young girl in the
garden.
- A group of children on a hillock, a young boy
sitting on a stile and playing a pipe while a boy and
girl dance.
- A group of children walking down a village street.
The bright costumes take the attention first, twins on
the left, girls holding hands on the right and a
little boy apparently fiddling with something as
little boys do. But also notice the architecture of
the cottages, a thatched cottage in the distance, a
plain 18thC farm workers hovel and others in jacobean
and victorian styles.
Although the series was designed by Lucien Besche when
working at Mintons China Works these are painted by an
independent studio or artist. Presumably a set of twelve
I can only recall seeing nine illusrations, mostly the
copies, the originals designed and painted by Besche are
very rare indeed. These may have been painted by W Yale
of Liverpool Road, Stoke upon Trent who is noted for art
tile painting, we have no real evidence to link these
with Yale other than he was an independent decorator of
great repute and indeed most noted for fine art quality
impasto landscape tiles. Clippings from the Besche
originals, for example the children fishing from the
bridge, also appear on Boote transfer printed tiles from
around 1882 as vignettes in the format of the Kate
Greenaway seasons and are often misattributed to
Greenaway.
Lucien Besche worked at Mintons China Works around
1870 and is mentioned in The Art Journal of 1875 as a
decorator for Copeland. He was then best known as a
figure and portrait painter and is thought to have worked
freelance for Copelands until around 1890, he also did
book illustrations. In the mid 1880s he became a
theatrical costume designer and also gained great repute
in this field, he designed costumes for the first
production of Alice in Wonderland in 1886 and for many
other London plays. His costumes travelled the world
being recorded as being on stage in New York, whether
Besche himself travelled to the city is uncertain as
American touring companies returning from England could
well have carried them along. The costume design on these
tiles is rich and complex and perhaps an indicator of his
later work in theatrical costume design.
Three of the six tiles are on Minton Hollins blanks,
the other three are on T & R Boote blanks one of
which most unusually bears the full maker's name. Two
tiles from the series are illustrated in Lockett on page
156, he notes they are signed with the initials GTC and
that the painting is very well executed the latter of
which is certainly true of these.
