Here’s one lot you won’t want to put under the hammer!
IT was a sad day that saw the closure of the Taggart Tile Museum. It was housed in a charming 16th century cottage in Great Staughton, Cambridgeshire, the interiors of which were festooned with a fabulous and extensive display of antique wall and floor tiles from many of England and Europe’s most important potteries.
Outside, in a small specialised garden, visitors could enjoy more set into paths and walls.
Adjacent to pretty St Andrew’s Church, the cottage is now a five-bedroom luxury home. Next month, the tiles go under the hammer at North Yorkshire auctioneers Tennants.
Lots range from High Victorian through the Arts and Crafts, Aesthetic, Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods and on into the 20th century.
Among the most imposing is a set of 12 six-inch picture tiles designed by John Moyr Smith (1839-1912) for Minton China Works, each brown block-printed tile depicting the trades and occupations of barber, shoemaker, mason, dyer, tailor, painter, weaver, tanner, carpenter, plumber, potter and smith. Dating from about 1870, the set is estimated at £120-180.
Glasgow-born Moyr Smith was an illustrator, interior decorator and furniture designer and arguably Minton’s most prolific tile designer, responsible for at least 18 pictorial tiles including an Old Testament series, which won the Grand Prize at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.
He published four books: Studies for Pictures: A Medley in 1868; Album of Decorative Figures (1882); Ancient Greek Stencilled and hand-painted picture tiles by Polly Brace Female Costume (1882); and Ornamental Interiors, Ancient and Modern (1888) as well as illustrating numerous others.
Another set of 12 tiles carrying the same estimate was designed by Helen J A Miles for Josiah Wedgwood & Sons in about 1880, each transfer-printed in blue and white illustrating the months of the year. A freelance designer, painter and book illustrator, she also worked for Doulton.
Among contemporary works is a group of 20 stencilled and hand-painted picture tiles on Minton blanks, by Mary (Polly) R Brace, co-founder of Dunsmore Tiles in Campden Hill, London.
They depict lambs, a red squirrel, foals, a fox, a parrot, hunting and ploughing scenes, a leopard, a tiger, a swan, a duck, a stork, flamingos, a kookaburra and a penguin, and are estimated together at £200-400.
Polly met Kathleen Pillsbury when they were students at the Central School of Art in London, before setting up their business hand painting tiles in about 1925.
By the 1950s the firm was being run by Polly and Gwyneth Fisher but, unable to compete with mass-produced tiles being made by large manufacturers, the business closed in 1964.
TENNANTS will sell the tile collection at the Auction Centre, Harmby Road, Leyburn, on March 2. Call 01969 623780.