- Style/technique: Palmette print
- Manufacturer: Minton Hollins
- Dimensions: 6" x 6"
- Date: circa 1870
A bold design of a genre popular during the arts &
crafts movement period block printed in chocolate on
buff. 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. This exact design
and many similar were more famously made by Mintons China
Works 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 them, 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.
Minton Hollins most likely were the originators of the
pattern on tile with the ceavats as in the following
paragraph. Mintons China Works copied many designs from
Hollins and others and judging by what we see produced
far more of these than Minton Hollins indeed this Hollins
example is quite rare and an interesting tile for the
collector of the genre and the Minton
companies.
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.
Very clean verso with usual grid and text.
