PASTORAL PERFECTION
The elegant fine art pottery pieces in The Countryside Collection by Moorcroft encapsulate the rural idyll in beautiful detail
alonefar “…togo hear fieldsand intothe singing ,the thebirds ,andthe tinkling brooks through rustling wind thecorn.” son,Lark Thomp -Flora ford Candle Riseto
Moorcroft’s story may have begun 120 years ago, but to this day the pottery continues to push artistic boundaries with its exquisite hand-painted ceramics. And its latest range, The Countryside Collection, is no exception.
Featuring the heritage craft techniques and design acumen Moorcroft is renowned for, the collection revisits a theme the brand has responded to in many extraordinary forms over the last century – namely peaceful rural life and landscape. Revealing aspects of the countryside in everyday life and times gone by, The Countryside Collection harks back to the pottery’s Arts and Crafts roots.
It includes stunning pieces such as Moorcroft designer Kerry Goodwin’s Cheviot Sheep vase. Follow the sweeping Old English Sheepdog at the rear of the vase and transport yourself to a carefree ramble, gazing across rolling hills to witness the age- old rural tradition of sheepherding. Or why not soar up into the sky with the Swifts vase, with its flurry of colour and movement?
Taking inspiration from France, Kerry’s Limousin Bulls appear against rolling hills of dandelion greens, while the Limousin Pigs is a robust and colourful creation by the designer, captured in clay. Just how pigs should be – wallowing in plenty of mud!
In another of Kerry’s designs, The Showground, you can see echoes of novelist Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to
Candleford trilogy, which followed the everyday drama of Victorian village life on the brink of industrialisation. Villagers clothed in turn- of-the-19th- century attire stand aside a country lane as magnificent cart horses, dressed and groomed for show, trot past them against a light summer breeze.