Antique Minton China Porcelain and Thomas Minton

The Minton china factory production consisted of practical and unpretentious tablewares in painted or printed earthenware or bone china that followed the typical shapes and decorative patterns of the period.
The firm gained it superb reputation when Herbert Minton succeeded his father as head of the firm. Under his management, he enlisted the services of many skilled artists. He introduced new techniques and methods of production. For these reasons, the Mintons was recognized for both industrial enterprise as well as its artistic excellence.

AWN Pugin, Sir Henry Cole, and Prince Albert were close associates whose designs were used by Minton. The painter and sculptor Alfred Stevens, the French sculptors Hugues Protat and Emile Jeannest, and the painter John Simpson were also employed there.

In 1845, Herbert Minton and Michael Daintry Hollins entered into partnership and the tile-making side of the business became known as Minton Hollins & Co. Herbert Minton's successful experiments in making encaustic tiles during the 1840s put him at the forefront of a huge industry supplying the requirments of institutions, churches, and domestic interiors all over the world.

Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles with a decoration made of different colours of clay inlaid into the surface, a method originally produced in the middle ages. Later, Herbert lead the way in exploiting industrial techniques for producing printed and painted tiles, and for the rest of the century the firm produced tiles in a vast array of styles, many of them designed by leading artists such as Christopher Dresser, Walter Crane, John Moyr Smith, and William Wise. Relief-moulded tiles were introduced to the Minton range from the 1860s.

Parian Ware is a marble-like unglazed porcelain body developed during the 1840s and used most successfully for sculptural pieces.

John Bell, the American Hiram Powers, and Albert Carrier de Belleuse were among the sculptors who produced statuary for Minton.

Popular scaled-down models of larger pieces by contemporary and past sculptors were produced in Parian ware and the material was often used in combination with glazed and painted bone china for display pieces.

Leon remained there until 1892 and among his achievements were the development of Renaissance inspired ceramics such as inlaid earthenwares, pieces painted in the style of Limoges porcelain and in 1850 Minton China introduced the richly coloured and heavily glazed majolica.

Majolica was first shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and used for all kinds of objects from large garden ornaments and elaborate display pieces to dishes and jugs for the table. Arnoux attracted other French artists to Minton, notably the sculptor Carrier de Belleuse, the modeller and decorator Marc-Louis Solon and the painter Antoine Boullemier.

This beautiful but labourious process involves building up a design in relief with layers of liquid slip, each one having to dry before the next is applied. Using this technique, Solon and his apprentices modelled diaphanously clad maidens and tumbling cherubs on vases and plaques with a skill that was unmatched by any other factory.


After Herberts death the firm was run by his nephew Colin Minton Campbell and Colin was a visionary like his uncle. From the 1860's Oriental decoration pre-occupied Minton. Highly original pieces, both in earthenware and bone china, evoked Chinese cloisonne enamels, Japanese lacquer ware and ivories, Islamic metalwork and Turkish pottery.

The art studio was set up under the direction of the painter WS Coleman, in order to encourage both amateur and professional artists to decorate china and tiles for Minton. Although popular and influential, unfortunately the studio was burnt down in 1875 and was never rebuilt.

Even though excellent work continued to flow out of the factory, management languished among disinterested Minton family members and the company narrowly escaped bankruptcy.

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Is Noritake China A Worthwhile Addition to Your Porcelain Collection?

Noritake china production began around 1876 when the Morimura Brothers formed a company of that name in Tokyo and opened an export office in New York. They initially produced a full range of china marked with the Nippon mark and also sold china in-the-white, ie; blanks for decorating by outside agencies and decorators, thus the quality of the earlier finished product can vary.

In 1904 the Morimura Brothers formed 'Nippon Toki Kaisha Ltd' and setup a production facility at Noritake near Nagoya on the Japanese island of Honshu. They registered their first Noritake back stamp around 1908 and registered their first Noritake mark in the USA around 1911.

There is high demand for good quality pieces, even with some wear to the handles, which is quite common, and they can fetch good prices. Japanese porcelain has almost always been good quality and has almost always been collected, but Noritake is probably the lesser cousin to the more desireable Kakiemon, Satsuma, Kutani and Imari wares. However we find it appeals to oriental porcelain collectors and that there is a good market for it.

The American architect Frank Lloyd Wright probably thought so too, when he designed tableware for Noritake in the 1920's. The tableware was produced for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

There are three commonly seen Noritake marks, namely the Noritake Maruki (often called Komaru) Mark, the M (for Morimura) Wreath Mark and the RC (for Royal Crockery) mark.


Between 1890 and 1921 the company marked their export china with 'Nippon' in western characters. These Nippon marks can date pieces to the 1890 to 1921 period, before the McKinley Tariff act demanded 'Japan' was used. After the first World War all Noritake production was marked 'Japan' or 'Made in Japan' to comply with the McKinley Tariff Act, and Nippon was only very rarely used after 1921. The use of Nippon can sometimes cause confusion as some pieces bear marks that state simply 'Oriental China, Nippon' around a rising sun. These Nippon marked pieces are highly desireable but collectors should be wary of faked Nippon marks on later pieces, particularly from the 1960's.


After WWII, from 1948 to 1952, Noritake China was marked in slightly differing ways, the most common marks used included 'Occupied Japan' or 'Made in Occupied Japan'.


Also Immediately after WWII, and due to an inability to maintain quality standards, the company stopped using Noritake on their marks and used 'Rose China' alongside a rose with 'Made in Japan' or 'Made in Occupied Japan' below. From about 1963 the company marked their china with 'Noritake Company Ltd'.
There are marks that include pattern or series names including Impromptu, Oneida, Grandceram, New Lineage, Noritake Tea Collection, among others. The most current mark includes 'Noritake Bone China' above a grecian style urn, within a wreath and with ® and Japan below.

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Haviland China Collectors Articles and Information

When searching for an antique that is enduring in beauty and affordable, why not consider Haviland butter pats? Although the larger pieces of Haviland such as tureens, compotes and chocolate sets are rare and prohibitively expensive for most of us, butter pats are plentiful and reasonably priced.

It has been determined that Haviland companies alone designed as many as 60,000 dinnerware patterns – most with matching butter pats. The Haviland factories in Limoges, France manufactured china that was decorated in the French style of pastel floral motifs for the American market. The 1908 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog advertised a 100-piece Theodore Haviland dinner set, including 12 individual butter dishes, for $23.50! The mail order company offered sample butter pats, postpaid, upon receipt of ten cents to allow the customer to see "the beauty of the ware and the delicacy of the decoration." Today the same tiny piece would sell for approximately $25.

Throughout Haviland’s years of production, patterns and colors were carefully designed to enhance the numerous shapes of the blanks. These patterns and colorations ranged from the plain Wedding Band pattern to the aristocratic and elaborate golds, flowers of all genera, classical motifs, Art Deco and all in a multitude of shapes.

These charming miniature plates take minimal space and they can be creatively integrated into your decorating scheme. Butter pats make beautiful wall displays pieces, alone or combined with handsomely framed and mounted artwork. Try grouping an assortment of pastel Haviland butter pats around an Impressionist piece of artwork. The results are stunning! For a special dinner party, utilize pats as votive candle holders at each place setting. Diminutive Haviland pats have been seen on the tables of royalty and presidents, as well as the homes of fine china lovers everywhere. Why not make Haviland butter pats part of your table and home décor.

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Lost Great Wall of China Segment Found?

A forgotten section of the Great Wall of China has been discovered deep in the Gobi Desert- and outside of China- researchers say. With the help of Google Earth, an international expedition documented the ancient wall for roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) in a restricted border zone in southern Mongolia in August 2011.

The defensive barrier formed part of the Great Wall system built by successive Chinese dynasties to repel Mongol invaders from the north, according to findings published in the March issue of the Chinese edition of National Geographic magazine. (The National Geographic Society is responsible for both the magazine and National Geographic News.)

Preserved to a height of 9 feet (2.75 meters) in places, the desert discovery belongs to a sequence of remnant walls in Mongolia collectively known as the Wall of Genghis Khan, said expedition leader and Great Wall researcher William Lindesay.

Named after the founder of the Mongol Empire, the Wall of Genghis Khan usually survives only as "a faint trace," Lindesay said in an email.

But "we found a 'real wall', standing high and existing as a dominant landscape feature," he said.

What's more, it wasn't the work of Genghis Khan or his heirs but actually a long-lost segment of the Great Wall of China network, the team's findings suggest.


First to Investigate New Great Wall?
Close to China in the border region of ?mn?govi Province, the ancient structure hadn't been scientifically explored or studied before, said Lindesay, director of the International Friends of the Great Wall conservation group, based in Beijing, China.

"We're the first to investigate the ruins," he said.

"According to the army officers who minded us, we were the first outsiders to be allowed into the area," Lindesay added. "We assumed various local Mongolians had been to the area, but had not considered the structure of much interest."

At times seeking out topographic clues seen in Google Earth- the wall is visible on satellite images- the team located two well preserved but contrasting stretches of wall.

One section had been made mainly with wet mud and a woody desert shrub called saxaul, the other from blocks of black volcanic rock.

Along its vast length, Lindesay suspects, the wall originally stood at least 2 meters (6.5 feet) taller than it does today.

"What we found was just the last remaining piece of a 'fossil'- the skull or the large thighbone, with the rest missing," he said.

"One can expect the wall was both much higher and continuous for vast distances."

That dark basaltic rock seems to have been an obvious choice for the second stretch, which crosses the rugged remains of extinct volcanoes.

The clean, straight edges to the blocks indicate that the stone was quarried, which would have required a large, organized workforce and an efficient transport system, the team said.


Rewriting History
Ancient Mongolian texts suggest that the so-called Wall of Genghis Khan was built as an animal fence by Khan's son ?gedei to keep wild gazelle on his land.

But the recently explored Gobi Desert wall segment isn't in a region where large herds of gazelle occur.
"There would be no reason to build an animal wall in the Gobi," said anthropologist and Mongolia historian Jack Weatherford, formerly of Macalester College, Minnesota.

Chinese researchers, perhaps not surprisingly, have speculated that China's Han dynasty had erected these little-studied stretches in about 115 B.C.

But radiocarbon dating of partly exposed wood and rope remains extracted from the wall indicates that the saxaul-segment construction went on for more than a hundred years- and occurred about a thousand years later than thought, from A.D. 1040 to 1160.

Those dates hint that the Western Xia dynasty built the walls- or at least rebuilt old Han walls on the sites.
Holding Back the Mongol Tide

This northwestern Chinese dynasty isn't known to have contributed to the Great Wall system, but in at least one aspect, a Western Xia origin makes sense.

During the Western Xia period, Mongol tribes were rising in strength and making forays south, Lindesay noted.

"If one imagines the wall as a platform, with some kind of battlement- perhaps of wooden stakes, functioning as a shield to those manning its top- then it would have been an effective defense installation," he said.

But, mysteriously, the expedition team found no pottery, no trash, no coins, no weapons- nothing to prove the wall was ever actually manned. Nor did they find any of the watchtowers that mark surviving sections of the Great Wall within China.

"The wall system was incomplete," Lindesay said. "It not only lacked the signaling capability [to make smoke signals]- it didn't appear to be capable of accommodating troops."


Unfinished Business
"I believe the wall here is only half built and that there was, for some reason, a rethink on locating the wall here," Lindesay said.

It isn't difficult to imagine how the purported Great Wall segment's harsh desert location might have led to the remote frontier defense being abandoned, he added.

Weatherford, the Minnesota-based anthropologist, agrees with Lindesay's conclusion that the newfound remains were Chinese constructions.

There's a good reason, Weatherford added, that the stretch nevertheless carries Genghis Khan's name.
Mongolians, he said, are sensitive to the idea of "Chinese structures built on their land, since it carries the possible claim that the land was once Chinese.

"By calling it the Genghis Khan Wall, the name makes the place Mongolian and rejects foreign influence," Weatherford said.

He also describes the expedition new findings as "very important, because to my knowledge this wall has not been studied."

"I would risk saying that it is the largest human-made structure or artifact in all of Mongolia," he added. "It is amazing to me that it is not already much better analyzed."

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Omen – Phoenix of china pottery

Porcelain Products: works of ceramic art in the form of work. Phoenix into art works,ancient general shape, coarse and heavy infiltration of the rich in the antique flavor,simple lines to Phoenix look lifelike sculpture, glazed with a white three-dimensionalpoint, a flow texture, deep flavor works.

Production process:
Jun Porcelain City of God originated in the Henan Yu Hou town, as one of the famous five porcelains, is the Treasure of the Chinese history of the kilns, dating back more than thirteen hundred years of history, has been hailed as the “National Treasure . “ Jun porcelain from the Tang and Song Sheng beginning, since the emperors Huizong been handpicked from the Queen’s treasures, except for Royal all, are not allowed to private possession. In the Song dynasty to enjoy “gold was priceless Jun”, “even though some family property as chinaware million a consistent” and reputation. Junyao changed the appearance of white domination of the young history of the world into a ceramic industry and its glorious period.

Jun Porcelain of God, extraordinary and wonderful, absolutely world crown four characteristics of the name:
God, with its mysterious unique “kiln” Art, to create a beautiful colorful, ever-changing Jun Porcelain charm.
Odd, like piano pieces such as the opening bell sound, elegant hack vulgar, put the action in the static, accompanied by a criss-cross network of ice cracks, making it more shiny enamel dripping through the living, as into the fragmentation, and refers to the sense of smooth glaze surface showing a pearl point. Crab claw marks. Such as mud lines earthworm wonderful artistic effect.

Wonderful, very muddy art of living shiny Junyao consonance, it gives unlimited imagination, that is, different angles, different light to you to new discoveries, new feelings, Smart through the live, unique charm .

Absolutely, poly color by kiln forming, and the formation of the landscape are the must.

Jun Porcelain Taizhi polished, solid and delicate; glaze natural, opalescent crystal, colorful and glorified, very poetic, and indeed the world is a must. Jun porcelain is that it has never get tired of rare charm, the glaze is not the man portrayed naturalness, Jun porcelain glaze each is unique, is the so-called “Jun Porcelain unparalleled, the kiln without the” with high appreciation and collection value, and become wealthy merchants and connoisseurs are striving to acquire high-end gifts and VIP gifts.

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Glaze pot of china pottery

Porcelain Products:
This work by Professor Xu Wenhui use made of colored glaze decoration techniques. Style is unique, with a colored glaze decoration techniques, kiln changes flow through the glaze, glaze the natural flow of change.

Production process:
Color Glaze is a metallic element containing the raw materials for coloring the coloring beautiful glaze. Glaze by adding different metal oxides as coloring agents, after calcination above 1250 degrees Celsius in order to show the flow of oil if it is light, color Hong Xia, lines if clouds waterfall unique charm. Colorful variety of color glazes. By firing into the nature of post-flame oxidation of flame color glaze, color glaze reduction flame two. After the appearance of features classified by firing can be divided into single-color glaze, complex glaze (glaze), crack the glaze, matte glaze, crystalline glaze.
About the author:
Xu Wenhui: 1947 births. Graduated from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute of Fine Arts, bachelor’s degree. Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Professor, has taught at the Normal School of Jingdezhen, Jingdezhen College Art Department, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Normal University, Department of Fine Arts College. University staff present Jingdezhen Ceramic, Jingdezhen Ceramic Association executive director. Good at painting and calligraphy, cursive script, official script stands apart. The ceramic works of painting with books, pictures in the book, silhouetted against each other, since the interest all day long, showing a kind of elegant and quiet style.

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Guide to Art Deco China

First seen at the international exhibition in Paris in 1925 Art Deco was in vogue during the 1920s and 1930s and was a great inspiration to British ceramicists. Art Deco ceramics were extremely popular. Their bright, colourful design brought a sense of fun and contemporary style to the home. The First World War had changed women's position in society and many of them were keen to support the newly emerging female designers, such as Clarice Cliff, Charlotte Rhead and Susie Cooper.

For the collector the choices are endless - you can collect by shape, by factory, by designer, by colour, by motif or by year. Clarice Cliff's design made at the A J Wilkinson factory were avidly collected with the new Bizarre range being especially popular. Apart from being a surface designer Clarice had also trained as a modeller and she was interested in developing glazes. The combination of these three makes her designs so interesting. While Clarice Cliff pottery can be very expensive there are affordable pieces to be had. Crocus was made from 1928 to 1964 and is one of the most affordable, while Honolulu was only made for about a year and is difficult to find and expensive.

Art Deco caught on very quickly and soon most manufacturers had a handful of colourful geometric designs in their collection. Shelley Pottery launched several new ranges: Vogue and Mode in 1930, Eve and Regent in 1932 and Oxford in 1934. Shelley's pieces have a fine bone china body which was unmatched by any other ceramic manufacturer.

Shelley is famous for its advertising campaign featuring the instantly recognisable Shelley Girl. This figurine could be seen in many china shop windows during the late 1920s and early 1930s and is now very collectible. One was sold at auction in the autumn of 2008 for ?4,000 and even a damaged one can still fetch ?1,600.
Susie Cooper established her own pottery in 1929 where she produced some geometric patterns. A partnership with Woods and Sons from 1931 enabled her to control shape manufacture too. Her abstract cubism-inspired designs using blocks of colour are particularly stunning. The leaping deer was one of the iconic images of Art Deco style and it was used by many potters, including Poole. Susie Cooper used it and it became part of her backstamp from 1932 until the 1950s.

Royal Doulton also embraced Art Deco and developed distinctive shapes for both tableware and earthenware ranges, such as Fairy, Casino, Dandy and Embassy, but the best known are probably Tango, Syren, Gaylee and Eden.

While Charlotte Rhead was less famous than Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper her work is still highly sought after. She worked for Burgess and Leigh, makers of Burleigh Ware from 1926 to 1931 and A G Richardson (Crown Ducal) from 1932 to 1942. At Burgess and Leigh her work included designs with Art Deco influences such as geometrics and stylised flowers while at Ducal she developed new glazes.

Among other potters of the era were Carlton Ware with its lustre and oriental-inspired wares and Art Deco table wares. Myott also adopted the Art Deco style and produced tableware, striking vases, plaques and jugs. During the 1940s Myott started to manufacture figures for Marcel Goldschneider, an Austrian who had fled to Britain at the outbreak of war. Many of Goldschneider's figures and wall masks produced in the 1920s and 1930s were in the Art Deco style.

Most potteries during the 1920s and 1930s produced Art Deco designs and some are better than others and there is a wealth of Art Deco to collect. The Auction houses tell us that interest in Art Deco remains strong and prices for the rarest and most luxurious pieces remain high, although prices at the lower end of the market are not what they were - a perfect opportunity for the new collector. There are bargains to be had!

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