Tile Heaven: Pictures and Portraits

Pictures & Portraits
Pictorial series
Portraits
Landscapes and Views
Animals, Birds, Fish, Food and Fruit

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Please click on an image for a larger view, details and pricing information, pages will open in a new window.
Most large images are full size at 72 dpi, larger images are available if required for closer inspection before ordering.
We may have more of a particular pattern/series than shown as it is not always possible to list all together. Please ask if you require several matching tiles, more than 4 or 5 in very good or better condition is unusual.
For order, contact and other information please use the links at the top or bottom of the page.

Click the small tile picture for a larger picture and description

Click the small tile picture for a larger picture and description

Information

email

How to order

FAQ

Information

email

How to order

FAQ

Eight Inch Tiles
Most eight inch square tiles were made from around 1870 to around 1890, outside of these dates they were rarely seen. Being larger tiles they offered more scope to artists, a larger 'canvas', so a greater proportion than 6" x 6" tiles are handpainted, but several manufacturers simply added borders to existing 6" x 6" designs or took designs intended for large plates and stuck them on tiles.

One can hypothesise as to why they were introduced and why they failed to gain lasting acceptance in the marketplace.

Pros:

Fixing costs. For wall and floor tiling fixing was a significant part of the overall cost, theoretically larger tiles reduce the labour.

Technology. Being more difficult to manufacture smaller, less capable companies were less able to compete with the majors.

A larger 'canvas' for the artwork.

Cons:

More liable to damage, drop an eight inch tile and the force of the impact of the tile with the floor will be almost double that of a six inch tile (they mostly land on their corners). I am sure builders didn't like using them.

Marketing. Many decorative tiles were fitted in to cast iron fireplaces, and distributed by ironfounders. Larger tiles meant less iron, more profit for tile companies, less for iron foundries.

For fireplaces the maths doesn't add up. Standard fireplace width was 36", take off the fire opening (16" or 18"), the frame around the opening (2" - 3") and the tiles (16") and there's hardly any left for the outer iron frame. Tiles could be fitted in to the iron at a steeper angle reducing the overall width but then the fireplace was more difficult and costly to install.

Planning, 6" x 6" tiles have an exact number to a square foot, and to a square yard, not the case with 8" x 8" tiles.

Tile making was not a precise process, manufacturing imperfections were more likely to occur with larger dimensions, especially size variations.

Few manufacturers made 8" x 8" tiles, most were made by a handful of companies: Mintons China Works, Minton Hollins, Maws, Wedgwood and Copeland. Occassionally we find eight inch tiles by other major makers like Pilkington and Sherwin and Cotton, tiles for lesser manufacturers like Steele & Wood and Brown, Westhead and Moore were quite probably made by major companies.

Click the small tile picture for a larger picture and description

Click the small tile picture for a larger picture and description

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About Pictures & Portrait Tiles

The most popular subjects for picture series are taken from literature, Shakespeare's plays, Aesop's fables, nursery rhymes, novels and poems. The calendar; seasons, months and times of the day feature strongly as do musicians and sporting scenes. Many of the earlier designs are inspired by the past, medieval and greco-roman styles abound. Oriental landscapes were popular early on, in the1880s british landscapes became more popular often featuring scenes from an idyllic rural life, sporting scenes that most often represent the country sports of hunting and fishing, later still architectural themes became more prevalent featuring pictures of some of Britains great historiuc buildings. Some of the sporting series exhibit somewhat of a sense of humour but Moyr Smith's series from folklore like Elfins and Water Nymphs are the most irreverant. Most major companies did a series of farm animals, birds weren't so popular as printed series but feature strongly in hand painted tiles, there are quite a few with butterflies and insects on them too.
Majolica pictures tend to be more figural than landscapes the latter perhaps being too detailed for a good representation in the process, many majolica pictures are portraits of famous personalities of the times. Pictorial tiles had faded in popularity by 1900, at least few new designs were commissioned, sales could have relied on back catalogues. Along with majolica colour had become more important and making detailed, especially figural, colour majolica tiles was very difficult as it was more problematic to keep the glazes colours from bleeding than with painting stains. Majolica pictorial tiles were overwhelmingly single colour as indeed had been printed picture tiles but in the heyday of the picture tile, 1870 to 1890, the range of underglaze colours was limited anyway by the technology available. Some designs cried out to be coloured, the few William Wise landscape tiles that are seen coloured are a real joy, it's a wonder that more were not made although Mintons China Works did very few handcoloured prints of any genre preferring to concetrate on their printing expertise.

In the Edwardian era coloured rural scenes tiles were made, both handpainted and hand coloured prints, often in bright colours and at times naive they are cheerful and charming. To some extent Dutch subjects and scenes became fashionable again, both landscapes and figural, featuring windmills and canals and the inevitable clogs.