Rare Vintage Petite William Moorcroft "Leaf and Berry" Art Pottery Cabinet Vase
By William Moorcroft
Located in San Diego, CA
Rare Vintage Petite William Moorcroft "Leaf and Berry" Art Pottery Cabinet Vase, Stamped, circa 1930s.
Pottery, Earthenware
Unavailable
H 10.25 in W 8 in D 6 in
Rare William Moorcroft Cornflower Two Handle Trumpet Shape Vase, circa 1920s
By William Moorcroft
Located in Toronto, ONTARIO
A rare Cornflower pattern two handled trumpet shape vase by William Moorcroft. Decorated all throughout the outside and decorated also on the inside. Signed in green on bottom of ...
Pottery
Rare William Moorcroft Claremont Inkwell Dated 1913
By William Moorcroft
Located in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire
A rare William Moorcroft Claremont pattern inkwell of square shape with a central well and four pen holders. The inkwell is decorated with tubelined mushrooms in colored glazes on a ...
Pottery
Large Flambé Art Deco Moorcroft Ginger Jar with a Very Rare Floral Pattern
By Moorcroft Pottery
Located in Hamilton, Ontario
This large and substantial art pottery ginger jar was made by the Moorcroft Pottery company of England, in the period and style of the Art Deco era. The pattern presented on this gin...
Pottery
William Moorcroft Macintyre Art Nouveau Rare Blue Dahlia Pattern Goblet
By William Moorcroft
Located in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire
Florian Ware goblet decorated with tube lined decoration in a rare ‘Dahlia’ variant design by William Moorcroft and dating from 1903.
Pottery
William Moorcroft (1872–1945), the founder of the celebrated British art-pottery company that shares his last name, was both an aesthete and a technical innovator. Along with William de Morgan, he is regarded as one of the greatest ceramists of the Arts and Crafts movement, yet Moorcroft’s singular style is heavily inflected with the lush naturalism of the Art Nouveau school of art and design.
The son of a decorative pottery painter, Moorcroft was born in Staffordshire, the center of English ceramics-making, studied at the Wedgwood Institute and in 1897 joined the local pottery manufacturer James Macintyre & Co. as a designer. After a year, he was put in charge of the company’s art-pottery studio, and there he developed a new style of wares named “Florian,” made with a technique called tube-lining, or slip-trailing. In this method, decorative motifs are outlined with a thin, raised border produced by piping a thread of clay onto the body of a vessel — much like squeezing toothpaste from a tube.
Moorcroft, who took the unusual step of signing his ceramics, would go on to win numerous international awards. In 1913, backed by the London department store Liberty & Co., he left Macintyre to open his own workshop. Queen Mary, wife of King George V, gave Moorcroft her Royal Warrant in 1928. Shortly before he died in 1945, his son, Walter Moorcroft (1917–2002), took over as head of the firm. The pottery company is still in business in Staffordshire, with a design department headed by Rachel Bishop.
William Moorcroft’s ceramics are noted for their colorful, ebullient (and often slightly surreal) decorations depicting stylized natural forms — flowers, toadstools, fruit (pomegranate is a favorite among collectors), insects and landscapes. Most Moorcroft wares are finished with a glossy overglaze. Blue-and-white and pastel shades were generally used as underglazes on early Moorcroft pieces, and he later developed a rich, ruddy background glaze he called “flambé.”
Moorcroft art pottery has a rich, warm and inviting look — a comforting aesthetic that explains their enduring appeal.
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