- Style/technique: Palmette print
- Manufacturer: Mintons China Works
- Dimensions: 6" x 6"
- Date: circa 1880
A bold design of a genre popular during the arts &
crafts movement period block printed in black and tan.
One of the oldest designs one is likely to see on a
victorian tile with the exception perhaps of the fleur de
lys its use recordeded for millenia. Such designs were
made by Mintons in the 1870s and 1880s and often
erroneously attributed to Christopher Dresser or
alternatively under the pressure to attribute to a famous
victorian designer Owen Jones. They were made in moulded
majolica by Minton & Co/Minton Hollins and printed in
a variety of colours by Mintons China Works and others.
The form is of the anthemion or palmette an ancient
egyptian-greco-roman palm or shell-like design consistent
with the arts & crafts movement use of ancient design
themes.
Anthemion is from the greek for flower and the form is
variously attributed to papyrus, palm, acanthus and
honeysuckle as the original inspiration but this is so
far back in the sands of time (ancient Egypt!) that
really most likely is that the variations were
representative of different flora and coalesced into this
standard form. Clam shells, nautilus shells and ammonites
have also been popular design subjects from time
immemorial as all early populations lived close to water
supplies many near the sea shore and variations of the
anthemion design very much clam shell like in form were
also popular throughout history.
The design has various pattern numbers according to
the colorway, the number of this is unknown although in
8" it has the number 1022, in blue and gold persian
glazed it has number 1390, in blue on white 6" it has the
number 1661 dating it around 1878. A slightly simplified
6" x 3" border version has the number 973. The earlier
numbers put it in to the era before Minton Hollins and
Mintons China Works split in 1868, a little early for
Dresser and suggesting maybe that it was designed by
Pugin if indeed one can add any 19thC name to such a
ubiquitous and ancient design. In the 19thC many examples
of palmette designs from two millennia earlier were on
display in the British Museum, all a designer had to do
was go along there and copy one.
Very clean verso with unmarked offset grid.
