Antique Art Deco ceramics

Bright colours and attractive white and cream glazes are the keynotes of Art Deco ceramics. Pottery and tableware took on bold geometric shapes with attractive hand-finished decoration. Brightly coloured glazes were popular in America. China figures were produced in great numbers: favourite subjects were modern women, naked or scantily dressed, sporting figures and animals.

In England the Doulton Lambeth potteries made small bone china figures that maintained a cautious balance between traditional crinolined lady and the modern woman. Figures by Phoebe Stabler, Richard Garbe and Gilbert Bayes are especially collectable. The Wedgewood range of vases, bowls, covered boxes and inkstands, many designed by the New Zealander Keith Murray, epitomize machine age geometry, enhanced by monochrome matt glazes of subdued green, grey-blue and ivory.

Toby jugs

The jug was probably named and modelled after ‘Sir Toby Philpot’ a legendary 18th century drinker, who also made an appearance in Francis Fawkes song ‘The Brown Jug’. It has also been suggested that Sir Tony Belch, a character in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, may have influenced the choice of name.

The first Toby jugs were made in the 1760s in Staffordshire, an area already known for the manufacture of Earthenware figures. Today, one of the most desirable of the early Staffordshire Toby jugs is the so-called Ralph Wood-type. Credited with the invention and spread of the jug, Ralph Wood I produced well-modelled figures decorated with translucent coloured glazes. He was amongst the first English potters to mark his work and Wood signed Toby jugs are particularly sought-after. An unmarked Ralph Wood I jug is usually worth over £1,000, depending on condition, but his rare ‘Thin Man’ jugs can be worth double. Jugs marked with a Mould number are often more valuable and examples signed by Wood command a premium, sometimes over £2,500.

Antique English slipware

Slipware is a type of pottery that particularly flourished in England in the 17th century and the early years of the 18th century. Essentially, it is red or buff earthenware decorated with white or coloured slip (diluted clay) that contrasts with the body. A yellowish lead glaze is characteristic.

Decoration took the form of slip-trailing, applied mouldings or sgraffito. In some areas combed (zig-zag), feathered and marbled patterns were favoured from the early 18th century.

White saltglazed stoneware

From c. 1740, English stoneware underwent a vigorous phase of development in response to competition from Chinese porcelain, the Staffordshire potters leading the way in evolving a whiter body for inexpensive utility wares such as bottles, jars and preserve pots.

the basic improvement was to add white Devonshire clay and powdered flint to the ingredients. These additions, combined with a new method of slip cast moulding, allowed the production of a lightweight, durable, white body capable of being cast in delicate, detailed shapes, and of withstanding the impact of boiling water. As with brown saltglaze, a pitted "orange peel" surface is characteristic.

Antique maiolica

Maiolica is simply an old Italian word for pottery – specifically earthenware (as opposed to red terracotta), with painted decoration on a white background under a tin-based glaze. It is believed the term was first used to describe the medieval lustre pottery from Spain that was imported into Italy via the island of Mallorca. As the spirit or Renaissance spread through Italy during the 15^th century, maiolica potters in Tuscany, particularly those near Florence, took the manufacture of pottery into a totally new dimension.

It is these early pieces and, to a lesser extent, 17^th and 18^th-century examples that interest collectors today. More affordable are 19^th-century copies of early master works predominantly pictured on the photos here – which have just as much decorative potential without the high price tag.