Opportunity Cumnocks Sale of large collection offers a rare chance to own an example of this lovely Scottish pottery
SCOTTISH and pottery are words scarcely heard together among antiques collectors. The exception is Wemyss, that brightly coloured ware decorated with fruit and cabbage roses, specially the cats and pigs, the appreciation of which was boosted when it was discovered that the Queen Mother was a devoted collector.
Then there’s the crudely made, spongedecorated earthenware made by artisanal potters north of the border to serve the domestic market, now sought after by collectors able to recognise it, looking to decorate their homes in rustic style.
But what about Cumnock Pottery? No, I hadn’t heard of it either, until word reached me about a singleowner collection about to come onto the auction block. It is the first time such a quantity has appeared together for as long as anyone can remember.
On February 8-9 – it’s a weekend, so handy for private collectors – The Canterbury Auction Galleries will sell 27 lots of it. Estimates range from £80-800, so there’s plenty of choice for pockets of all depths.
Should you be bidding for it? Well, it rather depends on your tastes. If you prefer dainty 18th century porcelain, then it’s not for you.
Cumnock stoneware is chunky, hard reddish-brown and businesslike, definitely not the stuff for afternoon tea with the vicar. But it is charming in its own way, whimsical, naïve and amusing.
Every kitchen needs salt. If nothing else appeals, then at least consider one of the several “kits”, “crocks” or “pigs” as the containers are variously known to sit next to your stove.
Or save your small change in a Cumnock money box, pour your family’s tea from a Cumnock teapot, keep your digestives in a Cumnock biscuit barrel and dip them in a frog mug, or light your way to bed with a Cumnock candlestick, a lot of it decorated with witty inscriptions.
That much of it is naïvely potted is not surprising. The pottery, named after the town in East Ayrshire where it was founded, started life in 1792 with the purpose of making crucibles for a blast furnace proposed by the sixth Earl of Dumfries. It was managed by engineer James Taylor.
He employed two Glasgow potters named James and John Henderson and 13 workers, but despite there being ample supplies of clay on the estate, production was hampered by poor supplies of the graphite needed. The blast furnace plan was abandoned and the potters turned instead to producing earthenware for the domestic market.
Taylor’s son, Robert, who also ran a nearby tileworks, took over in 1825 and in 1838, the pottery passed to Alexander Hamilton, who lived in nearby Mauchline, where poet Robbie Burns lived for some years.
That town had developed a highly profitable tourist trade in small wooden boxes and trinkets, fashioned as such things as needle cases, napkin rings, pincushions and darning eggs, each decorated with tartan, fern designs using actual ferns and leaves and, most commonly transfer-printed scenic images.
Whether or not this influenced the Cumnock potters we can only speculate, but the arrival of the railway system brought floods of visitors to the area and also opened up new ways to distribute their wares.
Find a piece of Cumnock ware today and chances are it will be decorated with some witty, pithy or commemorative motto, a move introduced in about 1830 to boost business. By 1852, management and later ownership of both the pottery and the tile business passed to James McGavin Nichol and he took production of the popular motto ware to new heights. Nichol died in 1885 and the pottery management passed to his son, John, and stepson, David Dunsmor, a time-served potter under whose control the business enjoyed its most profitable period.
However, the combination of an influx of cheap imported china, changing fashions, and the supply of local clay becoming exhausted, saw production cease in 1920.
The piece carrying the highest estimate in the Kent auction is probably the earliest: a lidded jar with twin handles decorated in slip (liquid clay) with a floral and geometric design, which bears the inscription “Mrs Robt Baird Watston. Ochiltree. 1846”.
Standing at 7.5ins high, it was made as a presentation piece to Mrs W for reasons now lost in time, although its most recent provenance dates from 2007 when it was acquired by its present owner at a Bonhams sale in Edinburgh. This time out it is estimated at £600-800.
This and others were clearly commissioned by their original owners and made specially. A salt crock estimated at £400-600, the top modelled with a chicken, the body decorated with a moulded and slip acanthus design and inscribed “A Present from Cumnock 1879”, is a piece intended go on sale as a souvenir to any tourist of the day, but another, slip-decorated with flowering urns, which is inscribed “Mrs Wilson Cumnock 1869” is estimated at £300-500.
Others, amusingly, give their recipients’ addresses. A teapot and cover, slip-decorated with coloured flowers and leaves, is incised “S and M. McTaggart. Cardoness Laundry. Gatehouse. 1888”, while another is incised “Mrs Wm. Cook. 109 Paisley Road. Glasgow. 1884”. They are together estimated at £200-300.
Motto ware includes a teapot and cover, decorated with a band of slip incised “Help Yersel an’ Dinna Be Blate” (Don’t be shy) and comes with a teapot stand, inscribed – “Ye’re Unco (uncommonly) Welcome”.
Both are in a lot with eight other pieces, estimated at £120-160, while another decorated with a band of slip incised “My Warst (Worst) Word is Welcome and Welcome Again”, a milk jug, incised “This Mornin’s Milkin”, and nine other pieces are guided at £100-150.
Several pieces of motto ware borrow words and phrases from Burns’ poetry. A rose bowl with twig handles is incised on a slip band “The Roses Blaw (blow) in Ilka (each, every) Bield (sheltered spot)” is a line from the Burns poem “Countrie Lassie”. Others give advice on life and morality. One reads “Ye May Gang Favrer an’ Fare Waur” (You may go further and do a lot worse), others are just amusing: “Keep Yer Braith Tae Cule Yer Parritch” (Keep your breath to cool your porridge).
Cumnock stoneware is chunky, hard reddish-brown and business-like, definitely not the stuff for afternoon tea with the vicar... But it is charming in its own way