How talented sisters did the Lambeth work

Barlow siblings’ gift for animal illustration means their work for London studio is still in high demand

NEVER in all the years we’ve been collecting – and that’s a lot – have we seen such a boom and bust. First, it was Royal Doulton figures, you know, the ones with HN numbers. First Doulton said it was shifting production to China. Then, in 2002 after more than 200 years of making fine china products for the Empire, the Potteries company sold out to Waterford Wedgwood.

Collectors responded by buying old pieces for investment, sending prices skywards.

The same thing happened at Beswick, founded down the road in 1894.

Owned by Doulton since 1969, they also ceased production in 2002, causing similar dismay among collectors who felt compelled to buy out-of-production rarities before being priced out.

Values for both more than tripled and there were even cases where homes were being burgled just so thieves could make off with entire collections. And then the steam ran out. Sanity returned and prices dipped accordingly.

Today, both the Doulton and Beswick names continue as part of the Finnish Fiskars group of companies. Investors, meanwhile, count their losses, and with prices for collectable pieces from both firms at a low ebb, there is no better time to buy than now.

A recent sale at North Yorkshire fine art auctioneers Tennants indicated an exception, however.

Doulton collectors will know that the company started life in Lambeth,south London, making earthenware bottles for beer and chemicals and water filters and salt-glazed stoneware pipes for drainage and sanitation.

The business was founded in 1815 by partners John Doulton, Martha Jones, and John Watts, with a factory at Vauxhall Walk, trading as Jones, Watts & Doulton. Martha left in 1820, whereafter the trade name was changed to Doulton & Watts.

However, in 1871, and looking to expand on his company’s by then massive success, Doulton challenged his son Henry (1820-1897) to diversify into art pottery, capitalising on a burgeoning Victorian middle class.

His workforce – of both men and women – was drawn from the students at Lambeth School of Art, today the City and Guilds of London Art School, which Henry supported financially and served on the board of management.

It was a match made in heaven. Encouraged by Henry, and with support from his father with unlimited financial backing, the business and its designers, artists and potters flourished.

Several owe their name to the school and to Henry Doulton, among them George Tinworth, Frank Butler, Mark Marshall and Eliza Simmance and notably sisters Florence and Hannah Barlow.

At Tennants, a collection of Barlow “Lambethware” formed by Myra and David Turner, bucked the Doulton trend and garnered riches.

The West Yorkshire couple began collecting shortly after their marriage in 1959, turning to Doulton in the 1970s. Unlike Royal Doulton’s mass-produced series ware – the company won the royal warrant in 1901 – the Lambeth pottery was made and decorated entirely by hand.

Thus every piece is unique and Hannah Barlow, noted for her incised animals, and Florence, who was particularly successful at painting birds and foliage, were doyennes in their trade.

Hannah Bolton Barlow (1851-1916) was the first woman artist to be employed by Doulton, joining the company’s Lambeth studios in 1871. Like many of her fellows, she was a former pupil of the principal of Lambeth School of Art, John Sparkes, a close friend of Henry Doulton, who helped her obtain the job.

It was her talent for drawing animals that got her noticed.

She used a technique known as sgraffito, a term derived from the Italian for “scratched”, incising Doulton Lambeth stoneware bowl by Florence Barlow, decorated with pâte-sur-pâte birds and dated 1888. Sold for £200. A Pair of Doulton Lambeth stoneware vases by Florence Barlow, with geese on a stippled ground. Sold for £350

designs with a needle-like tool.

The area was then brushed with a coloured stain, usually blue, which found its way into the cuts and, after firing, made the shapes stand out more clearly.

Hannah’s love of animals began as a child living in the Essex countryside. She had been surrounded by a great number of family pets, which she sketched and painted in watercolours.

Pictures she painted later in life turn up in the saleroom occasionally.

Hannah’s father died in 1866, after which she was forced to move to London in search of work. However, she could not bear to part with her pets, and it was various species of cats and dogs that formed the basis of her private zoo at her cottage in Wraysbury, near Staines.

It was then that she began paying visits to L-R: A pair of large Doulton Lambeth stoneware vases by Hannah Barlow, sold for £800. A Doulton Lambeth stoneware planter by Hannah Barlow, incised with a haymaking scene, sold for £420. A Doulton Lambeth stoneware planter by Hannah Barlow, incised with horses and cattle, dated 1884. Sold for £550. The sisters would collaborate often, marking their work with their respective monograms as in this stoneware lidded biscuit barrel. Sold for £600.

London Zoo, where she studied the characteristics of more exotic creatures.

Back in the studio, she would reproduce what she had seen, working from memory. She even took her own pets to the studio for inspiration.

In 1876, five years after joining Doulton, she lost the use of her right hand, some reports blaming the constant handling of wet clay.

However, undaunted, she set about learning to decorate with her left hand and became just as competent. She retired in 1913.

Florence Elizabeth Barlow (1855-1909) also attended the Lambeth School of Art and joined Hannah at Doulton in 1873. Florence’s forte was ceramic painting.

She used a technique known as pâte sur pâte, literally body on body, which involved building up layer after layer of translucent clay slip to achieve a decoration that stands in relief from the surface of the object.

Supreme patience and delicacy of brushwork were needed to obtain the desired result, but Florence was probably Doulton’s finest master of the technique. She was particularly successful at using various coloured bodies to obtain light and shade in her painting. Florence retired in 1909.

Once seen and identified, the Barlow monograms are easily recognisable. Hannah’s looks like two letter ‘B’s back to back, while Florence’s spells ‘FEB’.