• Style/technique: Pictorial handpainted
• Manufacturer: Minton Hollins
• Dimensions: 6" x 6"
• Date: circa 1890

 

A brilliant handpainted design of a young boy and girl in period costume, the girl in tears and the boy, perhaps somewhat unusually for tile subjects, appearing to comfort her! Painted in overglaze enamels in brilliant colours and with great detail and feeling, excellent skin tones for tile decoration. Being unsigned suggests that it was made at the Minton Hollins works although their tiles were preferred by most of the independent decorators. Exceptional condition for its time and date, could easily be quite a bit earlier than 1890 but the condition is so good that one finds an earlier date difficult to give.

After having the tile for a while I noticed that part of the boy's hair is not completely painted and thought it may be a fault but it is not, the artist is representing blonde hair in the sunlight. It could not possibly be worn so perfectly in that area given the surface is perfect.

Verso marked with all the usual embossed Minton Hollins marks.

Condition: Near perfect
Price: £285 (approx $570)
Ref: 02672

A very small chip bottom left corner, about half a dozen tiny > minute edge chips, dark speck behind the girl's head is a glaze blemish.

The image is full size at 72 dpi (about 430 pixels wide) in maximum quality JPEG format and on screen is about the size as it would be in real life at the same distance. 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. Other 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.